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LONDON, Feb 18: Four men were handed long jail terms on Monday after being found guilty of plotting what British police said would have been the biggest heist in history.
In a plot worthy of James Bond, they attempted to steal diamonds worth 200 million pounds (290 million dollars) from London’s Millennium Dome, escape along the River Thames in a speedboat and smuggle them out of the country into the hands of the Russian mafia.
Among the stones they hoped to steal was the Millennium Star, at 777 carats one of the world’s largest gems.
The robbers may have been inspired by the Bond film “The World is Not Enough”, which featured a speedboat chase to the Dome — showpiece of Britain’s year 2000 celebrations — in the opening sequence.
But the audacious plan was foiled by the Flying Squad rapid reaction police force, who had switched the real diamonds for fakes and were lying in wait for the robbers.
“Had it not been for the intervention of the police on the day in question they would have committed the largest robbery ever to take place anywhere in the world and in doing so...put lives in severe danger,” said Detective Inspector John Shatford.
“These are top-tier professional criminals who should go away for a long time,” he told reporters outside the Old Bailey criminal court in central London.
PRISON SENTENCES: William Cockram, from London, and Raymond Betson, of no fixed address, were both jailed for 18 years for conspiracy to rob. Aldo Ciarrocchi, from London, and Robert Adams, of no fixed address, were jailed for 15 years on the same charge.
A fifth man, Kevin Meredith, a boat skipper from Brighton, was found guilty of the lesser charge of conspiracy to steal the 12 diamonds in the Dome. He was sentenced to five years in jail.
All five men had denied conspiracy to rob. All bar Meredith admitted conspiracy to steal, which has a maximum seven year sentence.
The gang used a road digger to smash through the perimeter fence of the giant Dome attraction and attacked the display case with sledgehammers and a nail gun.
Armed officers, many disguised as cleaners and Dome workers, rounded up the gang, and caught Meredith who was waiting on a high-powered speedboat on the Thames.
“This was a wicked and highly professional crime,” Judge Michael Coombe said in passing sentence. He said the foiled robbery involved “a gigantic sum” that would have been the largest in English legal history.
The diamonds were put on display in the Dome by mining company De Beers.
Shatford said the intention was to get diamonds to Russia.
“I’ve got sufficient intelligence to show they were going to utilise resources from a Russian mafia, that they were going to be taken very quickly out of the country, maybe to Moscow, but they would have profited by millions of pounds,” he said.
“Unfortunately, with the arrest of these individuals, that trail went cold very, very quickly. That’s the best guess.”—Reuters
