Being legalled
Months of planning, meticulous preparations and test runs like scenes from Ocean’s Eleven went into the Millennium Dome robbery.
This was not just by the gang who conspired to carry out the audacious raid – but by the police who had got wind of it.
It would have been one of the biggest diamond heists in history, had it succeeded.
However, the robbers were thwarted by an informer and a cleverly planned counterattack by the police. In the end, the diamonds remained safely under and lock and key – and so, eventually, did the gang members.
How the whole operation was planned and carried out, by both criminals and cops, is about to be revealed in new Netflix documentary The Diamond Heist.
Arriving on the streaming service on Wednesday 16 April, the three-part series has first-hand accounts from former gang member Lee Wenham and Flying Squad officers. Guy Ritchie is the mastermind behind the televisual operation, as executive producer.
Ahead of the documentary debut, we explore the true story of the heist plot and those involved.
The Millennium Dome was raided by robbers in November 2000 (Photo: Getty)As a new millennium dawned, the doors opened on an iconic new structure on London’s Greenwich Peninsula.
The Millennium Dome, now known as the O2, was packed full of VIPs, from the Queen to prime minister Tony Blair, all gathered to see in the 2000s.
Also collected under the same remarkable curved roof were some of the world’s rarest gemstones, as part of the De Beers Millennium Jewels exhibit, including priceless blue diamonds, and 203.04 carat diamond the Millennium Star.
This glittering and highly valuable assembly commanded global attention and caught the eye of London’s criminal underworld.
By the summer of 2000, a group of south-east London criminals had begun gathering the expertise and equipment needed to carry out a raid on the Dome to steal the jewels.
Months were spent studying the structure’s layout and the security arrangements, and acquiring a JCB digger and a speedboat.
Their plan was to use a bulldozer to ramraid the Dome in broad daylight, steal the world’s second-biggest flawless diamond in a haul worth £350m, and escape by speedboat down the Thames.
There was just one flaw – the Flying Squad were watching their every move.
The Millennium Star was part of the De Beers exhibition (Photo: Netflix)How did the police thwart the Diamond Heist?
Two high-profile attempted armed robberies in London and Kent in 2000 had drawn police attention to a gang who might be capable of targeting the Millennium Jewels.
By the summer, officers had received information from an informer that a big armed robbery was being planned, and so they launched Operation Magician, involving 200 personnel, including 40 from SCO19 – tghe Met’s Specialist Firearms Command, and 60 armed Flying Squad officers.
In early September 2000, police spotted gang members Lee Wenham, Raymond Betson and William Cockram visiting the exhibition at the Dome and videoing the area. their visits tended to coincide with high tide on the Thames.
Police surveillance soon revealed more gang members were involved. By late September, some had been seen testing out a speedboat in a Kent harbour.
With a raid appearing to be imminent, the priceless jewels were replaced with replicas; a false wall was installed inside the exhibit room to allow space for police to hide; and security and cleaning staff were swapped for undercover officers.
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Read MoreThe police had identified days when the raid might occur, but on the first two days the gang aborted their planned operation, once due to the speedboat malfunctioning, and the second time because the tide was too low.
At 9.30am on 7 November 2000, the raid began and Operation Magician swung into action, led by Detective Superintendent Jon Shatford. The Millennium Dome’s CCTV room was used as the control room to manage the 200 officers in and outside the premises and on the river.
Four gang members wearing body armour and gas masks arrived on the JCB and ram-raided their way into the Dome. Armed with sledgehammers and nail guns, they broke through the security glass protecting the exhibition.
Using smoke bombs to distract and conceal, one gang member weakened the glass of the display cases containing the exhibits with a nail gun and another hit them with a sledgehammer.
As they were within grasping distance of the replica jewels, the police swooped in and arrested four of them. A fifth man was detained at the helm of a speedboat, a sixth in a van, and a seventh on the north shore of the Thames, suspected of monitoring police radio frequencies.
Who were the Diamond Heist thieves and where are they now?
A year later, on 8 November 2001, the case went to trial at the Old Bailey in London. In February 2002, four men were found guilty of plotting to carry out the heist of the century.
Raymond Betson, then 40, of Chatham, Kent, and William Cockram, 49, from Catford, south-east London, were considered the gang leaders and jailed for 18 years each. This was later reduced to 15 year on appeal.
Robert Adams, then 57, of no fixed address, and Aldo Ciarrocchi, 32, of Bermondsey, south-east London, each were given 15 years in jail.
Brighton-based Kevin Meredith, then 34, who was caught on the speedboat waiting to take the gang across the Thames to a getaway van, was cleared of conspiracy to rob, but found guilty of conspiring to steal, and sentenced to five years.
Terry Millman, who had been apprehended waiting in a van, died of cancer before the case came to trial.
Lee Wenham was sentenced to four years in jail after pleading guilty to conspiracy to steal.
At the same time, he was sentenced to nine years after pleading guilty to a separate offence, an attempted robbery, in July 2000.
Then 33 years old, he was living in Horsmonden, Kent at the time. He is now a grandfather and works as a landscape gardener in Wadhurst, East Sussex.
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