True Crime Campfire - Golden Years: The Hatton Garden Heist

Episode Date: August 1, 2025

Mark Twain, always a good man for a quote, said about getting old: “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” There is generally a broad unspoken societal agreement over what the elderly are supposed to be like, the shape their lives are supposed to have. There are always people who don’t fit into this preconception, of course, I’m sure plenty of you have encountered some weird and wild senior citizens—but probably not as wild as the people in this week’s story., who turned their lives into their own personal mash-up of “Grumpy Old Men” and “Oceans 11.”Join Katie and Whitney, plus the hosts of Last Podcast on the Left, Sinisterhood, and Scared to Death, on the very first CRIMEWAVE true crime cruise! Get your fan code now--tickets on sale now, and there's a limited number left: CrimeWaveatSea.com/CAMPFIRESources:Sexy Beasts by Wensley ClarksonCosmopolitan: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a60809952/hatton-garden-heist/BBC News: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-35126667The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jan/23/one-last-job-inside-story-of-the-hatton-garden-heistFollow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfirehttps://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/Facebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/truecrimecampfire/?hl=enTwitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. Mark Twain, always a good man for a quote, said about getting old. Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. There is generally a broad, unspoken societal agreement over what the elderly are supposed to be like, the shape their lives are supposed to have.

There are always people who don't fit into this preconception, of course. I'm sure plenty of you have encountered some weird and wild senior citizens, but probably not as wild as the people in this week's story, who turned their lives into their own personal mashup of grumpy old men and Oceans 11. This is Golden Years, the Hatton Garden Heist. So, campers, for this one, we're starting in the town of Dartford, Kent, on the outskirts of London, May 19, 2015. 76-year-old Brian Reeder was staying close to the phone. He was expecting an important call, one that could change his life.

He was an old man with a shock of white hair that he arranged carefully to disguise a receding hair line. just because you're old doesn't mean you can't be vain. Brian liked nice, expensive clothes. He wore tasseled brown leather shoes, stripy socks, and colorful silk scarves. He looked frail. He was frail. A few years ago, he'd been diagnosed with prostate cancer and neutropenia, which made him susceptible to infection. Not long after that, he'd climbed a tree to cut a branch and fallen out, fracturing his neck.

The physical ills were the least of a bit. it, though. His wife Lynn had died six years before, and everything had seemed gray after that. There was really only one thing that could still bring excitement into his life. He sat by the phone and waited for the call.

Three police vans screeched to a halt outside Brian's home. He felt a little thrill as he watched 20 police officers pour out of the vans, several of them carrying a battering ram for Brian's front door, but he wasn't really surprised. A few moments later, the door

smashed in, and frail old Brian Reeder was placed under arrest for one of the largest robberies in British history. He'd been born in the tenement slums of Deptford in 1939, a place where theft was barely frowned upon as a way to survive in poverty. His dad was a fence. Brian was stealing almost as soon as he could walk. He was already on the path for a tough life, which wasn't helped when World War II started right after he was born, and the Nazis started bombing the shit out of London. The first six years of Brian's life were a grim mix of crime, air raid sirens, explosions, rubble, and poverty. And right after the war, his dad's carpet off, leaving seven-year-old Brian feeling like he had to take care of his family. He and a gang of friends stole cigarettes,

booze, and radios out of cars to sell onto dealers at the street markets. They shoplifted, too, which earned Brian his first criminal conviction at the grand old age of 11. This didn't scare him straight. It just made him a hero to his peers. Brian and his mates Nick led from roofs and wallets from tourist buses, really whatever they could get. He left school at 15 and got a job at a butcher's, but the math on that was pretty clear.

More effort, less money. When he was 17, Brian was conscripted for his one-year stent of national service. He wasn't keen on it, his patriotic feelings very clearly separated nation from government. In both world wars, plenty of his relatives had been conscripted into service and then killed. He tried to fail his medical, but the army didn't buy it. He was a bright guy, though, so he decided to make the best of it, and during his time in the army, he learned as much as he could about explosives and cutting equipment. As soon as he was out, he started building a reputation in the underworld as a cutter, someone who could get through walls. He also fell for the girl behind the

counter at his local bookies, where he placed vets most days. Lynn's family weren't too keen on her hooking up with Brian. You know, they sat her down and said, stay away from that sexually forbidden young man, which went about as well as you'd expect. They were soon married, and at least on Lynn's half, lived a regular suburban life. Brian followed the old school con's first rule.

Keep your mouth shut. So we don't know many details about his criminal career over the next couple of decades, except that he often complained about needing time off because he was so busy. He was essentially a contractor, hired out whenever a job needed some thick barrier to be taken care of. This put him in contact with plenty of shady characters, and at the end of the 70s, he went into business with one called Kenneth Noy. After Margaret Thatcher became prime minister in 1979, one of the things her government did was to get rid of the 15% tax on gold coins like South African Krugurans.

The more devious of you might already have spotted the problem with this. Brian Reeder and Ken Noyes certainly did. They bought Krugurons from banks tax-free, then smelted them down into gold ingots. They sold these back to other banks, collecting the 15% tax. Obviously, the tax was supposed to be passed on to the government, and equally, Obviously, obviously, they did no such thing. Legislations soon closed this loophole, but by then, Brian and Ken had enough capital to smuggle coins in from mainland Europe, where the tax was lower or non-existent.

They made a ton of money. In 1983, the Brinks Mar robbery happened. That's a whole other big story, but the short version is that a bunch of crooks had a warehouse at Heathrow Airport and unexpectedly found three tons of gold bouillon. The gold bars were numbered, so the crooks looked for ways to smelt them down into clean, untraceable gold, which brought them to Brian Reader and Ken noise. Soon, Brian and Ken were shuttling gold in both directions between Ken's country house and London. On January 26, 1985, Brian arrived at Ken's country house to talk about the gold business. It was dark.

The ground covered in light snow. Ken's wife Brenda made them tea. Not long after Brian arrived, Ken's dog started barking down by the barn. While Brian and Brenda waited on the front porch, Ken went to his car and got a flashlight and a knife, then went down to see what had gotten the dogs all riled up. He put the knife in his pocket and turned on the flashlight. The dogs were barking at a bush. Ken shone the flashlight on it.

Then he heard a noise to his left and swung the beam around. A hooded, masked figure dressed in all black, was standing just four feet away, staring right at him. According to Ken Noy, the strange figure punched him. Noy took the knife out of his pocket and started fighting back, stabbing the man again and again as they struggled. At the house, Brenda ran upstairs to grab a shotgun. Noi broke free and ran for the house while the man in black stumbled toward the garden wall. There's a masked man down there, Noi said, grabbing the shotgun.

All three of them hurried back toward the Barker. dogs who are now surrounding a man slumped on the ground. If you don't take that mask off and tell me who you are, I'll blow your head off, Noi said. The man hesitantly took off his mask. He looked almost as pale as the snow all around him. Brian Reeder had the uncomfortable feeling that he was probably a cop. A second later, a police car smashed through the iron gates of the property. Brian Reader just ran for it, scrambling over the

the garden wall and running through the dark across a snowy field. He eventually reached the road back to London and tried to hitch a lift. A car slowed. Brian recognized it as a model the police often used, so put his thumb down and hurried across the road when he saw a car coming in the opposite direction. This one slowed down to let him in, and this one was also driven by police. Brian and Ken were both arrested and charged with the murder of Detective Constable John Fordham, an undercover officer who'd been part of a crew surveilling Ken's house as part of the Brink's Matt investigation. Exactly what he'd been doing sneaking around the garden in a ski mask was never clear. Another member of the surveillance team claimed to have seen Brian kick the officer when he was on the ground,

thus his charge, although the officer making this accusation was unable to say where Brian had kicked him and hadn't come forward until five months after the event. Ultimately, a jury determined that Ken Noy had been defending himself, and he and Brian were both cleared of murder, but convicted of charges related to smelting the gold. Brian was sentenced to 10 years, Ken to 14. And Ken did not take it well, screaming at the jury, I hope you all die of cancer!

Jesus Christ! I don't, dude, wow. Brian got out in 1991, but, he was uncomfortable. It was clear the police were not about to let bygones be bygones. They watched him everywhere. Brian wanted to get away, and he wanted to make more money to take care of Lynn, who'd developed diabetes and problems with her pancreas. He moved to the north coast of Cyprus and tried to make a mint by building timeshare properties. He knew other crooks who had done the same thing in Spain, but the Spanish beaches were the most popular destination for

European tourists and northern Cyprus was not. Even before it was finished, the timeshare plan collapsed and Brian sold half-built properties at a loss and headed back to England. The 90s boom in London property prices made him realize he'd have made a ton of cash if he'd just stayed and invested his money there. Brian Reeder was a talented crook, but when it came to non-criminal ways of making money, his touch was more often led than gold. In 2009, Lynn died, leaving the next to 70-year-old Brian bereft. He started to feel like he had nothing left to lose, and his thoughts turned toward a potentially impossible job, Hatton Garden. The Hatton Garden area of London is the center of its gemstone and jewelry trade. The particular building Brian had in mind was

8890 Hatton Garden, an old six-story building that was home in its basement to the Hatton Garden safe deposit company. This was a private vault with a carefully cultured reputation for discretion and secrecy, and was reputed to hold incredible wealth. A lot of it was perfectly legitimate, profits or especially valuable merchandise from the nearby jewelry trade. It was also where some people hid their wealth from the government or from former spouses, and where much of London's criminal elite stashed their ill-gotten gains. Ooh-hoo-hoo! Just gives you goosebumps thinking about it, doesn't it? This was what made Hatt & Garden such a risk.

It was in the territory of the notorious and notoriously violent Adams' crime family. Trying to hit it without their okay would be madness. In prison, Ryan had met up again with an old friend, Terry Perkins, a professional robber who'd been put away for his part in a six million-pound heist in 1983. In the joint, they'd talked about Hatt and Garden, and now, Brian got back in touch. The first thing they needed to do was okay any heist with the Adams family, or they'd almost certainly end up dead. And they needed someone to provide financial backing for the job. A mutual acquaintance put them in touch with one of the Adams' most trusted employees.

Wensley Clarkson, whose book Sexy Beasts was one of our main sources, doesn't give this guy's real name but calls him Lenny, so I guess we will too. They flew down to southern Spain to meet Lenny, who took them out to dinner and then to a nightclub. And in a back room, he told them the Adams family had agreed to finance the job with conditions. He asked Perkins and Reader if they had an inside man to help them through the vault. Now, I don't do British accents campers, so I'm sorry. I'm not going to do it. I'm sorry.

Okay, you got it. Bullocks to that. Perkins said. Are you going to do the next part, too? No, I just was going to do the fun. part. Okay. All right. That's fair. We'll work out our own access. Inside men are a fucking liability. Lenny pretended to mull this over, then said he'd like them to meet someone. He called someone on his cell phone and a few moments later in walked a tall, thin man with weird red hair

sticking out from under a baseball cap, almost certainly a wig. He had on big sunglasses that hit a lot of his face. He smiled and introduced himself as Basil. He looked like some kind of evil clown, reader said later. Tall, awkward sort of bloke, but he smiled a lot. Basil, with the magicians flourish, opened his hand to reveal two keys. With these, he said proudly, I can get into the building, whip round to the fire exit, and hey, presto, let you all in, simple as that.

The deal was that the Adams family wanted Basil to recover one particular security box from the left-hand side of the vault. The rest of the crew were only to go after boxes on the right-hand side and only within specified number ranges. It was all very strange and unsettling, and neither Brian nor Terry liked it one bit. Someone they didn't know would be on the job with them, and it was becoming clear that their own control and freedom regarding the highest would be severely limited. But what could they do? The Adam's family ran North London. Either they did the job their way or they didn't do it at all. They agreed.

I keep picturing Gomez and Mortisha as crime bosses in London, like British, like Cockney Crime Bosses. That is a movie I would pay to see right there. Yeah, they'd be trading in like taxidermy bats or something and making out during crime meetings and stuff. You know what they would do? They would be trading in like super rare venomous snakes. That's what they do. Yeah. Yeah. Serving like cyanide tea to their enemies and drinking it themselves. I don't know. I'm already writing the movie in my head. Give it. Give me the movie. Give me the rights. I'll write it.

Brian already had the tool he needed in mind, a heavy duty diamond tip drill called the Hilty DD 350. It was expensive. But that's... was no problem. They'd just nick one from a construction company. They also needed a crew. From what we've seen of heists, IRL, this very rarely turns out to be an Ocean's Eleven style recruitment of highly skilled specialists. It's just picking from whatever shady dudes you happen to know. Danny Jones was 60 years old, a professional criminal who drank at the same pub as Terry Perkins, the castle. Jones was To say the least, eccentric.

He lived in a two million pound mansion in Enfield, but he was so tight-fisted that he bought all his clothes from charity shops. He preferred to sleep while wearing his dead mother's robe and walked around his house wearing a Turkish fez. He was obsessed with the army so much so that he often slept beside his bed rather than on it in a sleeping bag on the floor. When he did this, he'd pee in a bottle rather than walk the few yards to the bathroom. Yes.

Like a basement-dwelling kick-streamer. Okay. His wife was agoraphobic to a degree where she rarely left the house and apparently had the patience of a saint. Despite his age, Danny was as excitable and impulsive as a puppy. They all knew Kenny Collins, a 74-year-old. with a long record for fraud, burglary, and handling stolen goods. He had a rep as a fellow with a hard head and a big heart, a solid guy on a job, but he was 74,

had been seriously overweight for most of his life and now had serious hip problems. He needed a cane to walk most times, but no one in the crew knew that because he kept it hidden in his car whenever he met them. And finally, there was Carl Wood, a longtime friend of Danny Jones. He didn't have anything like the career of the others,

but they figured they could use him for some of the necessary physical work. Carl was on a 640-pound disability pension for a serious case of Crohn's disease, and he was deeply in debt. Right from the start, he kept pushing the crew to do the job as quickly as possible so he could dig himself out of a hole. The others ignored him. Except for Danny, they didn't much like him. Carl could be strange and distant,

and somewhat ironically, these old-school crooks and con artists preferred people to be frank and straightforward. They met every Friday at the castle to discuss the job over pints, all except for Basil, who they never heard from again after that first meeting. They'd been told to only get in touch when they were ready to do the job. The plan was to steal the equipment, then hit the vault over the April bank holiday weekend when all the businesses would be closed from Thursday evening until Tuesday morning. They nabbed the drill and tried it out behind a pub.

Brian Reeder, the supposed expert cutter, told them he knew everything about how to operate it, but he couldn't even get the thing started. Danny Jones opened his laptop and looked up how to operate the drill on YouTube, but to let Brian save face, they went through the procedure together, both holding on to the drill. It was just as well they did, because the machine almost flew out of their hands. They tried it out on a nearby concrete wall, and the diamond-tipped drill bit started tearing through it immediately. They stopped because the thing was incredibly loud and they worried somebody would come and investigate, but they were all impressed by the power of the thing. For all the careful planning, the fact is the gang had to get lucky again and again to pull off this heist. On April 1st, the day before they planned the break-in, there was a serious electrical fire beneath the Kingsway Road,

which included a gas line bursting and flames shooting up out of a manhole cover. Holy shit. It would burn for two days before being extended. distinguished. People in nearby offices were evacuated. Theaters canceled shows and telecommunications were screwy all around. The fire would obviously occupy most of the authorities' attention over the holiday weekend, so much so that there was later speculation that it was started as a deliberate diversion. It wasn't. The fire brigade would determine it was just a freak accident with no sign at all of arson. Just good luck. The next morning, the gang, as usual, minus Basil, met in a

a lock up behind the old Wheat's Heath pub. Terry Perkins told them they might walk away with as much as 50 million pounds, which set Danny Jones jumping around and punching the air and shouting, yes, until everybody else told him to shut up. I like Danny. Danny's the golden retriever friend. Just all excited. The plan was to get the most valuable gems they stole woven into cheap costume jewelry. Women would wear them on budget flights to Europe where the stones would be recut and sold. Brian Reader reiterated the Adams family's instructions.

They weren't to touch any box on the left-hand side of the vault, only the boxes on the right, and only the specific numbers they'd been told to steal. And he told them not to bring any weapons. The job was designed so that they wouldn't encounter anyone, and any weapons would add years

to any potential prison sentence. We're all too fucking old for a fight anyway, Reader said. He was 76. in an obvious poor health. He was already breathing hard before the job had started. They all arranged to travel separately to Hatt and Garden and meet in the evening. Brian bragged that he'd gotten hold of a stolen freedom pass,

which lets retirees travel for free on public transportation. So he'd take the train and bus into London without leaving any trail. Very sensible, but it struck all the image-conscious crooks in the room as a little odd for a supposed hardened criminal. He wants to seek your citizen discount. He doesn't. Yeah. Honestly, like, it's, at least it's stolen. Right?

Like, he stole it, so what do they care? It's not his. They all put their cell phones in a cardboard box until the job was done, except for Brian, who didn't have one. A little after 8 p.m., Kenny Collins stopped in a white van on Leather Lane, the next street over from Hatt & Garden. The gang soon met up. up with Brian Reeder on the street. They were going for the opposite of stealth here. All of them

who are going inside had on workmen's high-vis jackets. Brian's had gas written on the back, and he wore a hard hat. But Brian, who was quite a fancy man in his later years, couldn't fully commit to the disguise. He also wore stripy socks, expensive brown leather shoes, and a kicky silk scarf, which you don't often see on gas workers while they're on the job. They waited in the van until a little after nine when the mysterious Basil arrived. He walked along Greville Street, carrying a plastic bag on his shoulder in a way that blocked his face from London's ubiquitous CCTV cameras. He had on dark clothes and a black cap from beneath which the cameras caught shiny straight red hair that everyone thought must be a wig. The press would later call him Mr. Ginger.

Robbery is a lot easier when you have a key. Basil just strolled up to the front door of 8890 Hatt & Garden and let himself in. There was a magnetic glass door inside with a pin pad. Basil apparently had the code. He crossed the lobby and unlocked the door to the courtyard, then opened the fire exit onto the street. The rest of the gang, except for Kenny Collins, got out of the van and started unloading their equipment,

along with the two big wheelie bins. Terry Perkins kept patting his chest to make sure his insulin was there. Brian Reeder was out of breath after carrying one bag of tools. Still, they ferried everything through the fire exit, which they jammed open, not hurrying so as to

not look suspicious. Lastly, they carried in the long canvas bag that held the diamond tipped hilty drill. Once they were out, Kenny Collins locked the van and headed across the street, huffing and puffing as he struggled to get the door open.

He went up to the office, the gang had rented, and sat with his feet on the windowsill. He could see both the front and side entrances of 8890 from here, and would be the gang's lookout, with nothing but a cheese sandwich and a flask a tea to keep in company. Basil and Danny Jones went to work on the elevator, disabling it so it would stay on the third floor. Basil pulled off the door sensor so the elevator doors on the first floor would stay open, revealing the dark elevator shaft. A Colleenable Ladder took the two of them down to the basement where the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Company, had their offices and vault. They pried open the elevator doors down there with enough force to buckle them, and they were in. There were no cameras down here. The safe deposit company

made their money from discretion and secrecy. Their clientele didn't want to be recorded on their visits. Upstairs, another member of the crew taped an out-of-order sign beside the open elevator doors. They didn't expect anyone to be working late in the offices, but just in case they wanted to make sure no one felt like they had to report a broken elevator. In the basement, Basil got to work. He cut the telephone cable fixed to the alarm box and snapped off its antenna, which drastically reduced its signal range. He opened an electrical box that provided power to the sliding metal gate that separated

the basement from the courtyard and cut a few wires. With no power, the gate could be pulled open manually, which the rest of the gang did, and started dragging their equipment inside. The gate opening unexpectedly like that should have sent an alarm signal to the security company, but Basil had disabled that, or at least thought he had. But Basil's confidence in his technical abilities wasn't matched by his actual knowledge. The alarm wasn't completely disabled, and enough of a signal got through to alert the security company. Sort of. Again, the gang got lucky.

An automated text was sent from the security company to the local police station to let them know about an incident in the vault area. But the police ignored it completely. In fact, they didn't even notice it because an automated text is a ridiculous way to communicate a security concern. It's so crazy. The gang smashed the lockoff from the access door

into the vault area so they could get the equipment in more quickly. They cut through an iron gate with an angle grinder, then used industrial metal cutters to get through a barred, reinforced door, and into the vault company, offices. The sleek, dark metal vault door stood before them, silver combination locks shining. The gang had no interest in the door. They were going through the wall beside it. This was a foot and a half of concrete, reinforced with steel, but if Brian Reader's calculations

were correct, the Hilty Drill should handle it, although it wouldn't be quick. Or big. Their plan was to drill three adjoining holes, side by side, to create a tunnel about 18 inches inches wide and 10 inches high. Now, if you want, grab a tape measure and see if that's all you could fit through because my answer is definitely a hail not. But Basil and Danny Jones were both skinny little guys and were confident they could slither through. Reminds me of those terrifying caving videos. I'm obsessed with those. Any of you guys watch those? They're terrifying. Like, I like those two, but I have to watch them in like 10 minute chunks and take a break because they make me nauseous. Like, what do you mean you went headfirst down a hole that you weren't sure had an exit and now your arms are trapped?

Like, the guys always have like a new job or a pregnant wife or seven children at home waiting for them. It's like the weirdest, most unnecessary risk to take and yet they just glory in it. I'm going to squeeze myself into this hole that's smaller than a friggin' gopher hole. It's going to be fine. No. Well, Whitney, the worst part is that eventually we're all going to have to go caving. It's not optional. It's a legal requirement.

You must go caving. It's a legal. Yeah. They tried out the drill beforehand behind the Wheatheath pub, so they knew it would be loud. But that was out in the open air. Here in the enclosed offices, the sound was enormous and deafening, loud enough that they worried the locals would call somebody, but they were still lucky. After decades of proposals and planning, London was in the middle of building its crossrail project, connecting the east and west sides of the city. Through central London, this new railway was underground, and construction was underway of a new platform at the Farringdon Station just a few hundred feet from Hatt & Garden.

Anyone who heard the racket of the drill in the vault assumed the noise was connected to the underground railway work. Heavy machinery is tough work. Perkins and readers stopped drilling every 15 minutes saying it was to let the drill cool down. The drill was water-cooled and didn't need the interruption. It was obvious to Danny Jones that the two pension-age leaders of the crew were wearing themselves out and needed regular breaks, bless your hearts.

Basil didn't help at all. just stood in the corner with his fingers in his ears, smiling as he watched. He's such a friggin' weirdo. It took more than two hours to drill the first hole, and even that didn't get them all the way through. Each wall of the vault's interior was covered with a steel skin, fixed to the floor and ceiling that the cabinets holding the deposit boxes were fixed to. The gang had a plan to get through that, but first they had to finish drilling.

It was just after midnight. Hatt and Garden wasn't a nighttime part of town, and the streets were deserted. Up in his lookout spot by the window, cheese sandwich and tea long gone, Kenny Collins had his feet up on the windowsill and was struggling to stay awake. Not relatable. Over at the Holborn police station, someone had finally noticed the text message from the security company. Three hours after it had been sent. The coppers didn't exactly spring into action, though.

decided this wasn't a high priority alarm. Okay. All they did was call the alarm company and advise them to send one of the vault security guards to have a look around. The security guard pulled up outside 8890 Hatt & Garden at around 1.15 a.m. This was precisely the situation Kenny Collins had been set up to look out for across the street, but Kenny had lost the good fight and was deep asleep and snoring. But, lucky, lucky again, the gang downstairs had taken a longer break

for some tea and sandwiches of their own. So there was no drilling sounds for the guard to hear. In fact, it was quiet enough for the crew to hear the car pull up outside and hear someone walk around. The gang listened intently, but they weren't too worried.

Kenny would have radioed over to them if there was trouble. And Basil, who clearly knew the building inside and out, told them that even if a security guard had come to check things out, he'd only look at the outside of the building. He was right about that. The building's insurance policy stipulated that only police officers were to go inside the building in response to any alarm. The security guard checked the doors to make sure they were locked, then went around to look through the letterbox on the fire exit. He saw nothing untoward and decided the alarm system must have just tripped on by itself, something it had never previously done in the eight years since it had been installed. This is not a story about people being great at their jobs. I mean, on all accounts.

I mean, you've got the, you've got the criminals stopping for fucking tea and sandwiches on a timed heist. They're old, right? too. That blood sugar drops, you gotta get on it, man. They can, they can, they can drill in shifts, okay? Take a, take a sandwich break while somebody else drills. Aye, aye, y'ye. You have the lookout guy falling asleep.

The police missing text messages. What are they doing? That's a mess. The only, honestly, the only guy good at his job is Basil. He thought to like block his face from view. from the... Although even Basil wasn't that great at his job, he got to let the text message get sent out. What's true. Anyway, the guard called the vault manager who was on his way and told him everything was secure.

They both headed home. Now, if he'd peered through the letterbox for just a few more moments, the security guard would have seen Carl Wood come out to light a cigarette. By 5 a.m., all three holes were done, and the gang used sledgehammers to clear out the remaining concrete from the tunnel. Now, they had to deal with the steel skin on the inside of the vault. Now, for this, Brian Reader had brought a pump, a hose, and hydraulic ram, along with metal joists to anchor it in place inside the tunnel. This was the part of the plan that Brian had the least confidence in. a few days previously, he told Terry, if that doesn't do the trick, then we're fucked. These little dudes swear like it's their job, by the way.

Don't get me wrong. I like swearing. You guys know that. But these dudes had mouths on them like insane sailors. It's something else. You'll see it in a minute when I'm talking about. He pressed the starter on the ram. Nothing happened.

He pressed it again and again, tension building behind him. And then finally it fired up. Danny Jones and Carl Wood cheered. The ram bashed against the steel skin for an hour, but not only did it not break through, it had barely made a dent. Terry Perkins told Brian to speed it up. The ram grunted, clunked, and died.

Nothing they did got it started again. Brian shrugged and told him to pick up the sledgehammers they'd used on the concrete. Although Brian didn't do the work, he looked more exhausted than any of them, leaning against the wall and breathing hard as the others awkwardly bashed through the hole. One layer of metal was all that was between them and millions of pounds. After a sweaty half hour, it was clear they weren't going to get through.

Carl Wood suddenly threw down his hammer and started walking around in circles, screaming in frustration. Brian made a decision. The job was a bust. They'd have to pull out. Basil, who had literally not said one word in hours, narrowed his eyes and told them the Adams family would be very upset if the job failed. They should leave, get new equipment, and come back the next night.

The holiday weekend meant it was unlikely anyone would discover their work so far. The rest of the crew were unconvinced. Everything in their criminal careers told them you got in and out as quickly as possible and you never went back to the scene of the crime. If it had just been them, they would have called it quits. But it wasn't just them. This job was under the auspices of the Adams family. If they walked away, they'd have the threat of violence and death hanging over them.

At 7.30 a.m., they called Kenny Collins and told him to get the van ready. They piled in as Basil walked away alone. Kenny kept asking where the loot was, but no one answered him until they were back at his house. Brian Reeder made an uncomfortable decision. He told the gang he shouldn't go back with them now. that night. He didn't think he was physically capable of making it through another night like that and wouldn't do them any good at all if he had a heart attack in the middle of the job. None of them argued. He was pale and unsteady on his feet. They gave him a lift to the train station and then started

figuring out what they were going to do. Mike Tyson once said about boxing, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. Sleepless and desperate, the gang didn't make the best choices. They went out to a store called Machine Mark to get a new pump for the hydraulic ram. Danny Jones signed and gave his name as V Jones, but used his own credit card and gave his own address for the purchase. Dude, oopsie. That evening, Kenny Collins drove them back to Hatt and Garden and his white Mercedes. Basil had called earlier and told them to meet him at the same time and same place as the previous night. They got there a little early, which gave Carl Wood time. to completely lose his shit.

Carl's a little high strong, it seems. He was convinced someone had been inside the building and seen what they were up to. He started shaking his head and walking around, ranting that they'd been stitched up, that this was a trap, that the coppers were going to swoop in at any moment. His nerve was going.

Or, as one of the gang put it later, his asshole went. That's a good way of putting it. Eventually, Carl jabbed a finger into teeth. Terry Perkins's face, silently mouthed the words, fuck off and marched away into the night. Just a couple minutes later, Basil sauntered down the street. If he was surprised to see the crew reduced to just Terry Perkins and Danny Jones, he didn't show it, just nodded casually to them and let himself in the front door of the building,

just like he had the night before. They were soon down in the basement again, with the new pump connected to the ram. The new pump started smoothly, and the ram hammered at the steel skin holding the cat cabinets on the inside of the vault. Nothing happened quickly, but it was clear the ram was hitting the steel much harder than it had the previous night, bending the metal inward. Golden Retriever thief Danny Jones started yelling, smash it up now. Put that down. It's fucking working. It's working.

Finally, the ram pounded into the steel skin one last time, and it came loose from its mounting in the ceiling. The whole thing, cabinets and all. crashing forward into the vault. The way was clear. Right next to the unconquerable vault door, they'd cut a tunnel straight through the wall. Holy shit. For a while, they just stared at it.

Then Basil calmly reminded them that they were working against the clock. He was thin as a rail and easily squirmed through. Danny Jones came after, barely forcing himself through the narrow tunnel. Terry Perkins, who had the comfortable padding of a man of advancing years, stayed outside. There was no chance of him fitting through that gap. As agreed, Basil started

immediately looking for one specific box on the left side of the vault. Danny got out the scrap of paper on which he'd written the numbers of the boxes on the right side that they were allowed to take. Some of the security boxes were locked with two keys. Others were full safes with combination dials, but none of the security precautions in there were heavy duty. The vault itself was supposed to be protection enough. Danny had a crowbar and an angle grinder, and that was more than enough to smash the locks and rip out the boxes.

The first box was a disappointment, although a mysterious one. It held an audio cassette, and from the label, it looked like it was someone confessing to something. That would have gone into my pocket immediately, but it was worthless to Danny. He wanted cash, gold, gems, and jewelry,

and toss the tape aside and attack the others. Come on, man. I would be on that shit, Like white on rise, right? That would be the treasure for me. I could not get to a tape player fast enough. That is a damn shame. Oh, man, I wish I knew what was on that tape. He later said he felt like he was popping open boxes at Christmas time. Every time he opened one and found cash or jewels, he shouted out, yes, and shoved them into his bag. He pushed the first bag of loot through to Terry Perkins. Basel, meanwhile, had pulled out the one box he was after. and carried it gingerly as if it was full of eggs. He put it in a sack and crawled through the tunnel,

then just sat in the corner and watched the other two work, a broad smile on his face. What was in the box? Sorry, we don't know. Let your imaginations run wild. That glowing shit that was in the Pulp Fiction briefcase. Probably. Yeah, probably.

Terry Perkins quickly sifted through the loot. Just tossing aside gems and jewelry, he thought looked too cheap. Danny ripped open 72 boxes and only seven of them were empty or held things that were worthless to the robbers. One, for example, held six different passports for the same person.

Again, intriguing, but again, worthless to Danny. Basil suddenly stood and announced that he was off. The others didn't bother to say goodbye to him as he wandered away. Before he left, he went to the vault security office. and stole the hard drive for the CCTV cameras and other parts of the building. And that was it for Terry and Danny, too. They didn't trust Basil or the Adams family at all

and wouldn't put it past him to call the cops as soon as they'd gotten what they wanted. They called Kenny Collins and his lookout spot across the road and told him to get the van ready, then pushed the two wheelie bins full to the brim with valuable loot out to the fire exit. They loaded them into the van and sped off. It was 5.45 a.m. jobs like this heists bank robberies aren't like other crimes they come with an intense elation a buzz when they go right something criminal psychologists think is often just as important as the material rewards these guys are chasing a high as much as they're chasing riches so the van was bouncing as they drove back to kenny collins's place a little sober reflection might have dulled the mood they left almost all their tools and equipment back in the vault down to just two people and worried that the Adams family were about to stab them in the back, they hadn't

had time to drag it all out. They were also, as one of them said later on, fucking knackered. Whatever, they left behind plenty for the police to work with. Back at Kenny Collins' place, Terry immediately started splitting up the loot. On previous jobs of his, a lot of suspicion and grief had been caused by one person looking after the loot until it could be divided up later, and he wanted no bar to that. They'd have to lay low for a while before trying to fence anything, but they'd each have their own stash. They'd made an astonishing hall. Sapphires and diamonds worth tens of thousands of pounds, designer watches and brooches, bundles of pounds, dollars and euros, small bars of gold

and platinum. Later, the value of the hall would be estimated at 14 million pounds. That'd be around $27 million today. Terry Perkins was basking in the glow of a job well done, and then he got a phone call. It was the Adams family, letting him know that there'd been a change of plans. All the most valuable gems were to be given to Basil, who would ship them abroad immediately. Fuck off, Terry said, and slammed down the phone.

It rang again, almost immediately, and Terry learned that Basil had taken a CCTV hard drive that clearly showed all their faces. It would be given to the police if the gang didn't cooperate. And besides, there was no need to worry. They'd still get their fair share of the proceeds once the gems had been sold. Terry didn't believe that for a second. Having just pulled off an incredible robbery, the gang were themselves being robbed.

Just moments after the call, Basil was at the front door, with two big Adam's family lurches standing right behind him. He carefully went through the hall, picking up. out all the most valuable pieces. Before he left, he promised the gang they'd get their fair share. No one believed him. After he'd left, the mood sunk like a lead balloon. They still had a decent amount of loot, but just a fraction of what they'd worked so hard to get. It felt like a small reward for all the effort and risk. Terry Perkins pulled himself together and went back to splitting up what they had left. Brian Reeder hadn't been there the second night, but it was his

plan so he'd get a share. Carl Wood, having lost his asshole, got nothing. It wasn't until 8 a.m. on Tuesday, three days after the robbery, that a security guard went into the safety deposit company offices and discovered the smash door and the hole drilled through the wall. He rushed outside to get a signal on his phone and called the police. It was one of the biggest robberies in British history and was immediately a massive headline-grabbing story. As is often the case with big heist where no one gets hurt, the perpetrators almost immediately reached folk hero status in the popular imagination,

like becoming Robin Hood type sticking it to the man, although, of course, neglecting one important Robin Hood step, robbing from the rich check, giving to the poor, we'll get back to you on that. When it came out, the police hadn't responded to an alarm on the first night of the robbery, there was a huge outcry. No police force in the world wants to hear the words Keystone Cops.

Now it was all over the papers. The prime minister called the police commissioner for updates on the case, something that usually only happened with terrorism investigations. The heat was definitely on. Cameras from London's automatic number plate recognition system had captured thousands of images from the days around the heist. On April 18th, two and a half weeks after the robbery, investigators trawling through all this data

spotted a white Mercedes driving in and out of the Hatt and Garden area on both nights of the robbery. Looking further back, they found it had been there many times before, just slowly cruising around. And on the second night, it looked very much like the three passengers were all wearing high-vis jackets. Exterior CCTV cameras had grainy images of the robbery. robbers, all but one of them wearing jackets just like that.

The Mercedes was registered to Kenny Collins, 74 years old, with a record as long as your arm. Metropolitan Police immediately put him under surveillance. In a post-9-11 world, police surveillance was very different from what the old crooks were used to. A GPS tracker was attached to Kenny's car. Detectives followed him with cameras that had long-range microphones that could pick up conversations from 50 feet away. If they couldn't pick up the audio, they had lip readers examine the footage.

A GPS trace on Kenny's phone told them where he was at at any time. Every minute of his life was observed. But they didn't observe much. One detective said Kenny had, quote, one of the most boring fucking lives I've ever come across for a major criminal. Several times a day,

would just go out in his fancy white Mercedes, along with his Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Dempsey, and just cruise around his neighborhood just to be seen and show off his flashy car. This was a 75-year-old man. Kenny's habit of not looking either way before crossing the street made the detectives think he wasn't all that bright, and they weren't alone, in that opinion. What did you say earlier wit, that these guys had mouths like insane sailors? Terry Perkins later described Kenny as, quote, a wombat thick old cunt. Oh, my God.

I am adding that one to the Rolodex. That's going on our list for future episodes. It's a wombat thick. What is the hell? I love it so much. WTOC. WTOC. You know it.

He's just a WTOC. You'll know, you'll know, campers. When we say WTOC, you'll know what we mean. Kenny had no idea he was being surveilled. He moved like he was 10 years older than his actual age, and the detectives watching him wondered how he could possibly have had anything to do with an audacious heist. He got his car washed every other day. He shopped at Aldi.

That was it. Bless his heart. Then five days into the surveillance, he finally did something to break the monotony. He went to the pup. There he met with two. other elderly men, neither of whom looked healthy and had what looked like an intense conversation. A video camera and a bag on the bar recorded them, and lip reader suggested they'd been talking about Hat and Garden, which I do have to say, I don't understand

having, like, plotting your crime in public. Yeah, it's bizarre. Why? Why are you doing this? Why? Anyway. It was astonishing. All three of them looked like they'd fall over in a stiff breeze. Could these rickety old dudes really be the robbers the cops were looking for? Doubts evaporated, though, when the two new old men were identified back at Scotland Yard. Terry Perkins was 67 and had a long and glorious career as an armed robber, and Brian Reeder was 76, who'd had an equally long, if less spectacular career, but one that included the death of an undercover police officer back in 1983. Even three decades later, that's the kind of thing a police department remembers. As one detective put it, finding out Brian Reeder was involved was like putting a missile up all our arses. Ooh, kinky. The surveillance expanded and soon caught all the other members of the gang, except for Basil,

who the others had never seen or heard from again. The police played dumb to the press to try and keep the gang relaxed, insisting they were looking at an inside job and offering 20,000 pound reward for any leads. The investigators wanted to make sure they had an airtight case, and the opportunity soon came up. The gang was going to get together for what Crooks called the slaughter, bringing all the loot together for a more precise division than the hurried job they'd done immediately after the robbery. On Tuesday, May 19th, they got together at Terry Perkins' daughter's house out in Enfield, minus Brian Reeder, who was sick and trusted Terry to look after his share. They all had pieces of luggage crammed with loot. Just seconds after they'd all

arrived, six police cars screeched to a halt outside the house. A battering ram smashed open the front door and coppers swarmed inside. At each gang member's own house, other police raids took place. Forty miles south in Kent, three police vans pulled up outside Brian Reeder's house and 20 officers swarmed inside. The arrest reignited the press obsession with the case, especially when they discovered that most of the gang were well over 60. They were dubbed the Diamond Wheezers. I love it. The evidence against the crew was overwhelming, but still, authorities were surprised when the four principal robbers, Reader, Perkins, Jones, and Collins, all decided to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit burglary. There was no sentencing

deal. What they didn't know was that the gang were much more concerned about the Adams family than the judicial system. The family had made it clear. They'd prefer it if they all just did their time and kept their mouths shut and they went along. Otherwise, you know, the family's going to send Thing after him and Thing is a trained assassin. Terry Perkins, Danny Jones, and Kenny Collins each got seven-year prison sentences. Brian Reader got six years and three months. Carl Wood, who made zero money from the whole business got six years. A later ruling determined that the four principles had to pay back millions of pounds

in restitution or have their sentences extended. Terry Perkins, who developed heart disease in addition to his diabetes, died in prison in February 2018, a week after his second ruling. Brian Reeder developed dementia and was granted compassionate release in 2019. He died of cancer in 2023. Danny Jones was released in 2022. at the age of 66. As far as we know, Kenny Collins is still inside at the age of 85.

In 2018, police finally tracked down the mysterious basil, a whip-thin, 58-year-old called Michael Seed, who lived in a tiny council flat crammed with computers and electronics gear. His bio was very different from the rest of the Hatt and Garden crew, the son of a Cambridge biochemist who got an electronics degree before turning to a twin career selling LSD and repairing computers, friggin' Walter White over here. He said he'd lived in the black economy for 30 years, with no bank account and no government presence except for his monthly 105-pound council flat rent.

He hasn't opened up at all about how he came to be involved with the Adams family, which is probably wise, and he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, where he remains today. We all like to think we'll hold on to our spark as we get older, right? And you got to hand it these old guys. They definitely did that. One last big score. I suspect that, at least for some of them, it was almost worth it. The adrenaline rush, the Christmas morning feeling of going through all those safe deposit boxes. I mean, I would much rather it be something like skydiving, like my friend's 76-year-old mom recently started doing, because she's a batty. You don't have to do crime for that rush, but hey, you got to stay young at heart or die trying.

Well, we want to send a special happy birthday shout out this week to our superfan Abby from Jacob. My birthday's actually tomorrow, so hi there, almost birthday twins. So that was a wild one, right, campers? You know, we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire. And if you haven't booked your spot yet on the Crime Wave True Crime Cruise from November 3rd through November 7th, get on it. at y'all it is coming up on us join katy and me plus last podcast on the left scared to death and sinisterhood for a rock and good time at sea you can pay all at once or set up a payment plan but

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