Attempted robbery of diamond exhibition
The Millennium Dome raid was an attempted robbery of the Millennium Dome's diamond exhibition in Greenwich, South East London occurring on 7 November 2000. A local gang planned to ram-raid the De Beers diamond exhibition, which was held in the riverside Dome. The gang had then planned to escape via the Thames in a speedboat.
The De Beers diamond exhibition had many jewels on display, including the Millennium Star, a flawless gem with an estimated worth of £200 million (equivalent to £ million in 2023) and considered one of the most perfect gems in the world. Also on display were priceless blue diamonds.
The attempted robbery was foiled by the Flying Squad (led by Jon Shatford) of the Metropolitan Police Service as a result of information from Kent Police Serious Crime who already had the gang members under surveillance for their suspected roles in several unsuccessful armoured vehicle robberies. The operation to foil the robbery was the biggest in the Flying Squad's history. At trial, the judge commended the way it was carried out.
If the heist had succeeded, then with a haul of £350 million worth of diamonds (equivalent to £ million in 2023), it would have become one of the biggest robberies in history.
Operation Magician.
In the summer of 2000, the Flying Squad became aware of a significant armed robbery plot after receiving a tip-off. The location of this robbery was unclear, but the identities of some of the robbers were known to the police. The police spent several months developing intelligence on the plot and set up an operation they codenamed Operation Magician. During the intelligence gathering, the location of the robbery was found to be the Millennium Dome in Greenwich.
In February 2000, armed men tried to pull off a £10 million raid on a security van in Nine Elms, South London. The gunmen had stopped the security van by blocking both ends of Nine Elms Lane. They had planned to use their lorry carrying Christmas trees as a battering ram. This lorry had a huge metal spike welded into the chassis and covered by the foliage. The gang planned to split the security van's rear doors with the ram. The gang's plan failed when a motorist who was late for work removed the keys from the ignition of the unattended Christmas tree lorry. The robbers, left with no choice, escaped in an inflatable speedboat towards Chelsea.
It was attempted again on 7 July in Aylesford, Kent. This time, the gang got closer to the cash, with the metal spike rammed into the van. They were seconds from taking the money when an unexpected police car appeared; the gang shot at the approaching vehicle and again made their escape in an inflatable speedboat.
Detective Superintendent Jon Shatford stated that this attempted robbery brought to his attention a gang capable of carrying out a robbery with this level of planning. This unsuccessful attack provided the police with important clues and led them to track some of the vehicles used in the raid to two isolated farms in rural Kent; these properties were then put under 24-hour surveillance.
After this unsuccessful robbery, the police received a tip-off about the Dome raid from an informer. At a meeting between detectives to discuss the Nine Elms Lane attempted robbery and the information the informer provided about the Dome raid, one detective who had recently visited the Dome quipped, "Maybe they are after the Millennium jewels?" This comment led to the beginning of an investigation into the raid.
Surveillance.
On 1 September 2000, the team identified three suspected robbers—Lee Wenham, Raymond Betson, and William Cockram—at the Dome. It was then found that the Thames were at high tide every time they visited the attraction. They were observed visiting the exhibition and recording video footage, leading the police to suspect the exhibition could be a target. The surveillance on the men was significantly increased, and the Dome was placed under close watch.
The precautions taken by the Flying Squad included replacing the priceless gems with replicas of the same size (one of which is now in the Crime Museum), allowing the originals to be stored elsewhere, as well as installing a false wall inside the exhibit room, behind which 20 police were waiting in full tactical gear.
Due to an increase in surveillance, the police discovered other members of the gang. These included Terry Millman, tasked with obtaining the getaway speedboat for the escape. Cockram and Betson were also observed filming the surrounding river and jetty. The surveillance of the gang continued, and their visits to the Dome became more frequent. In late September, a few members of the gang were spotted testing a speedboat in a harbour in Kent.
Aborted robbery attempts.
The Metropolitan Police identified the possible days the raid could occur and communicated this information to De Beers and the Dome's management. Two of the days that the police had identified resulted in aborted attempts. The first aborted attempt occurred in early October and was called off due to the malfunctioning of the speedboat, which was to be used for the getaway. The second aborted attempt occurred one day before the date of the actual raid but was cancelled upon the gang discovering the tide was too low to ensure a safe getaway.
After this attempt, the police suspected the raid was imminent and were convinced the raid would take place the following day. The police then replaced all Dome staff with armed undercover officers. On several days in October, the gang under surveillance looked as if they were about to commence the raid.
Some members were spotted towing a speedboat to Greenwich and placing the boat in the river opposite the Dome. This activity indicated to the Squad that the robbery was close; however, this was not the case. Police then investigated the delay. The detectives analysed the times and days of the aborted attempts and found that they had something in common—the high tide. Upon closer investigation, the detectives discovered that the tide was at its highest possible level each day when the robbery was aborted. The police began to investigate the patterns of the tide and were able to predict the possible times that the raid was to take place. One of the predicted days happened to be the date of the actual raid.
Day of raid.
On 7 November at 9:30 am, Operation Magician was underway, commanded by Detective Superintendent Jon Shatford of the Metropolitan Police. A total of two hundred officers were involved in the operation, of which forty were from the Specialist Firearms Command (SCO19). A further sixty armed Flying Squad officers were stationed around the Thames and twenty on the river to prevent escape attempts. Surveillance officers were disguised as Dome employees. The police used the Millennium Dome's CCTV room as a control room.
All the officers were briefed at 3 am, the day of the raid, on the contingency plans in place. Before the raid, some officers were positioned behind a dummy wall, and others were dressed as cleaners and Dome employees, with their firearms concealed. Before the raid, four members of the gang had been identified in a JCB earth digger, and all were wearing body armour and gas masks. The men were armed with smoke bombs, sledgehammers, and nail guns to be used to penetrate the security glass that was protecting the exhibit. The digger was used by the gang to break through the perimeter fence and to crash through the side wall of the Dome to reach the Money Zone, where the De Beers diamonds were kept. The digger entered the Dome and parked outside the Money Zone.
Once inside, Ciarrocchi started throwing smoke bombs, and Cockram attempted to break the glass where the diamonds were stored. Cockram knew that the bombproof glass could resist the force of a 60-ton ram raid, but he planned to weaken the glass with three shots from a powerful Hilti nail gun. Then, another gang member, Robert Adams, would use a sledgehammer to break the weakened glass. The plan worked, and the gang was inches from the (decoy) diamonds.
The police pounced on four members of the gang as they attempted to smash their way into the display case. As the four men were arrested, other officers stationed around the Dome arrested another man in a high-powered boat on the Thames. The police also arrested a man they suspected of monitoring police radio frequencies: he was detained on the north shore of the Thames, opposite the Dome. All the suspects were apprehended; Millman was apprehended in a van. Once all the suspects had been detained, they were taken to police stations in South London. By noon, some areas of the Dome had reopened, but other areas, including the Money Zone, were cordoned off.
Shatford defended the decision to wait until the gang had reached the diamonds before arresting them. He said, "Our chief concern throughout was public safety. We decided it was better to let the robbers get to the vault where they were effectively imprisoned".
The serious crime unit of the Kent Police worked in conjunction with the Metropolitan Police Service. It arrested six more people in connection with the raid on Tuesday morning in the villages of Collier Street and Horsmonden. Police said the ages of the men ranged between 38 and 62.
Trial.
The case came to trial a year later, on 8 November 2001. It was heard at the Old Bailey, and only six members of the gang were present, as Terry Millman had died of cancer. The court heard that Betson, Cockram, Ciarrocchi, and Adams were caught by undercover officers in the Dome when they burst inside by using a JCB digger.
On the first day of the defence case, Cockram discussed the lack of security inside the Dome: "I couldn't believe how simple it was. ... I was thinking, this cannot be true, it was a gift. At first, I had thought it was pie in the sky, but after going down there, I couldn't believe security was so bad. ... There was nobody in the vault, no security workers walking around". He stated that had the plan succeeded, "It would have taken a very short time from hitting the main gate to getting back across the Thames – five minutes maximum". He also added, "No one was going to get hurt – there was no one to hurt. ... The Dome was always empty".
Cockram explained that the nail gun bought by the gang was to be used to break the glass in the vault, not as a weapon. The ammonia was to be used to contaminate any traces of blood left by him, he said. He explained that the body armour was to be used after the raid for protection when he was scheduled to meet with associates to discuss the sale of the gems.
Betson told the jury that his brother-in-law, Michael Waring, working at the Dome as part of the perimeter security, had told him about a school friend, Tony, who was also working there. Betson claimed that Waring had told him about Tony's plan: "Tony had got this plan together. He had a backer – someone to buy the jewellery. He said the security was crap."
Betson said, "I had every confidence in him – there was no way I thought he would betray me – not for two seconds. ... If this had come to me from someone else – in a pub – I would not have gone along with it, but it was the background to where it had come from. It was solid." Betson explained how he developed a trusting relationship with Waring: "I did not think he would try and do me any harm. I trusted." Cockram also said that Betson had told him that Waring was in on the plan.
Called as a prosecution witness, Waring "totally denied" that he was part of the plan or had offered to act criminally by providing information on security. The gang had invested tens of thousands planning the raid and stored the equipment needed at a disused commercial yard in Plumstead, southeast London, as well as two remote Kent farms, near Maidstone. Terry Millman, who had died of cancer before the trial, used the name T. Diamond when he paid £3,700 in cash to purchase a getaway speedboat at a yard in the seaside town of Whitstable, Kent.
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