Over the Easter holidays of 2015, the largest burglary in English history was committed. The Hatton Garden Safety Deposit building was raided by a gang of men, 73 deposit boxes were broken into and £14 million was taken in gold, cash and jewels.
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The grand heist was marked by the fact that this whole operation was planned and executed by elderly pensioners. Some in their 70s while the youngest was 42. This is the unique story of how ‘The Grandpa Gang’ executed one of the most impressive feats of crime in Britain's long history.
Age is nothing but a number
At the time, Brian Reader 76, John Collins 75, Terry Perkins, 67, Daniel Jones, 60 and William Lincoln 60 set a rendez-vous in front of the safe deposit building. A mystery figure dubbed ‘Basil’ let them into the building after which they used elevator shafts to climb down to the vaults but were thwarted during their first attempt by an alarm they failed to disable. Security came but noticed nothing out of the ordinary. The old men were stealthy and made sure to leave no trace behind.
The next day, refusing to admit defeat, they came back and successfully completed their operation but this time they were caught by CCTV which enabled the police to slowly catch them except one person: ‘Basil’.
Brian Reader the oldest of the crew had prior experience with high ticket heists as he was part of the 1983 bank heist at Heathrow airport which saw the theft of £26 million worth of gold bars. .
Craig Turner, the detective superintendent responsible for the case made a comment on the criminal history of the old men:
We can't escape the fact that these people are callous, career criminals, They had a long history of criminal activity behind them
A stern sentencing
A year after the heist all but one of the member of the 'Grandpa Gang' were arrested and plead guilty, in March of 2016 ‘John Collins (75), Terry Perkins (67), Daniel Jones (59) and William Lincoln (60) received a 7-year jail term while Carl Wood (59) got 6 years. The youngest of the lot, Doyle (49), got a 21-month sentence suspended for 2 years.’ according to ScoopWhoop.
‘Basil’ however was never caught. He made it with an estimated third of the money from the heist while the rest of the money was recovered, the police found Jewels hidden in a cemetery under a gravestone.
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Sources:
Reuters: 'Grandpa gang' guilty of biggest burglary in English history
ScoopWhoop: The Grandpa Gang: The Badass Oldies Who Pulled Off The Biggest Burglary In British History
