The Great Diamond Heist

Over the Easter weekend in 2015, an audacious gang of criminals robbed a safe depository in London's Hatton Garden, the centre of the UK's diamond trade. Shortly before, electrical cables under nearby Kingsway had caught on fire, disrupting the emergency services in the area. Coincidence. Alarms at Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd went off, but the police ignored them. The burglars were caught on CCTV taking jewellery worth up to $200 million. They had used specialist equipment, taking days to tunnel through the walls of the vault. Within a month nine suspects had been arrested and valuables seized from their homes. They were aged between forty-three and seventy-six, including a father and son. The question was, were they the same gang that had made a similar daring raid in Hatton Garden safe netting GBP1. 5 million over the Christmas holiday in 2004. The culprits then were never caught. In this fascinating investigation of the case and its aftermath, Gordon Bowers digs deep into the history of heists around the world and questions the motives and methods behind diamond theft.