Experienced thief Brian Reader recruited veteran accomplices to form a gang with a combined age of 448, plotting to break into a safe deposit box in Hatton Garden and steal £14 million worth of property.
Brian Reader was a veteran thief, had close ties to many of Britain’s top criminals, and participated in a money laundering conspiracy in the infamous Brink’s-Mat robbery , so he was imprisoned for 9 years in 1986.
After his release from prison, Reader moved house, changed his name, and lived a private life with his family. But after his wife passed away and he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, Reader decided to carry out his “last mission”.
Hearing that most of the gold lost in the Brink’s-Mat robbery was stored in a safe in the basement of Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd, a company that provided valuables storage services, Reader planned to break into the place.
In 2015, at the age of 76, Reader spent three years plotting, recruiting a “retired team” with special skills such as drilling, picking locks, and disabling alarm systems. The team was chosen by Reader for its experience and loyalty.
The group included Terry Perkins, 67, who served 22 years in prison for his part in the £6m robbery of Security Express in 1983. The gang also included veteran criminals John Collins, 74, and Danny Jones, 58, who had previous convictions for theft dating back to 1975.
The Reader group met several times to finalise their plans, usually on Friday nights at the Castle pub in Islington, north London.
In mid-February 2015, the group began investigating the Hatton Garden area, London’s jewellers’ street, home to an eight-storey building bearing the sign Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd and various businesses. In the basement were hundreds of safe deposit boxes, protected by steel doors and thick concrete walls.
Reader posed as a customer who wanted to order a safe, gaining access to the building and studying the layout of the vault. The team spent a lot of time observing the building’s security procedures and learning the habits of the security guards. After several rehearsals, Reader decided it was time to take action.
On Thursday 2 April 2015, at the start of the Easter weekend, Reader used his free bus pass to travel from his home in Dartford, Kent, to Hatton Garden.
At 8.25pm, Collins parked his white van outside the building, at 88-90 Hatton Garden. A man in a red wig, nicknamed Basil, obtained the door code and the front door key. Basil was in charge of the technical team, including disabling the alarm and dealing with the electrical system.
Basil waited until a man from a neighboring business left, then opened the fire escape into the building with a black trash bag slung over his shoulder.
Reader, Perkins, Jones and accomplices Carl Wood (59 years old), William Lincoln (60 years old) followed, posing as workers. They carried tool bags and two wheelie bins, moving through the fire escape.
Collins had a key to a building across the street and acted as a lookout. The group communicated via walkie-talkie, not using cell phones, knowing that this would prove they were at the scene.
Basil then jammed the elevator on the second floor and climbed down the shaft to the basement, where the vault was located. Basil only partially disabled the alarm, but it was enough to cut the power to the iron doors guarding the lobby leading to the vault entrance. When the doors opened, the gang entered with the machinery.
The alarm sends a warning signal. The police receive the message but do not respond.
The thieves passed through the second iron gate and were confronted with a thick concrete wall. Using a diamond-tipped drill bit they had previously researched on the internet, they penetrated the concrete, creating a hole 50cm deep, 25cm high and 45cm wide, cut 89cm above the ground.
When they tried to squeeze through the small hole, they ran into the back of large metal cabinets that held the safes. The cabinets were bolted to both the floor and the ceiling. The jack they used to open the elevator doors, which included a 10-ton hydraulic ram, was supposed to push the safes up, but it didn’t work.
The gang originally planned to finish it overnight, but the broken jack ruined the plan. Reader walked out sadly, giving up. They left at 8 o’clock.
On April 4, Collins drove Jones in a white Mercedes to buy a new pump and hose for the jack. Around 10 p.m. that day, Jones, Perkins, Wood, Collins and Basil returned to Hatton Garden in a white van. For some reason, Wood decided to give up.
Armed with the new equipment, the team re-entered the vault, unaware that they had made a fatal mistake. Half an hour earlier, Collins had driven his own white Mercedes back into Hatton Garden, meaning the police could trace his number plate.
On the second night of the operation, the thieves used a jack as a lever to break open metal cabinets and gain entry to the warehouse. One person climbed through a small hole to open 73 of the 550 safes.
Four steps the group of thieves took to raid the safe deposit box at Hatton Garden: jamming the elevator on the second floor to climb down the elevator shaft to the basement; opening the iron door leading to the safe deposit box; drilling through 50cm of concrete wall; breaking the metal cabinet blocking the hole to enter the deposit box. Photo: The Guardian
The gang made off with jewellery, precious stones, gold bars, cash, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds, luxury watches and rings, worth around £14m (equivalent to £20m in 2023).
They used wheelie bins to store their loot and spent an hour moving their belongings and equipment out. They left the scene at 6:44 a.m. on April 5.
It was not until 8am on April 7 that the theft was discovered by employees returning from a long holiday.
Police were confronted with a dusty scene, with debris and safes strewn about. Power tools, including a drill and crowbar, were left on the floor but had been cleaned of traces.
The chaotic scene after the raid by the gang of thieves. Photo: Met Police
The thieves drilled a hole 50cm deep, 25cm high and 45cm wide, 89cm above the ground to break into the warehouse. Photo: Met Police
The thieves opened 73 of the 550 safes and emptied the contents. Photo: Met Police
It took the gang two nights to drill through the wall and clear the metal cabinet blocking the way. Photo: Met Police
The chaotic scene after the raid by the gang of thieves. Photo: Met Police
The thieves drilled a hole 50cm deep, 25cm high and 45cm wide, 89cm above the ground to break into the warehouse. Photo: Met Police
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Scotland Yard is investigating the theft. Pressure has been mounting on the force after it emerged that security warnings had been ignored.
Detectives combed through surveillance cameras from nearby buildings for clues. They spotted Collins’ Mercedes, with a handicapped badge, outside the building half an hour before the white van returned on the second night. After finding out that the owner had a criminal record dating back to 1961, they decided to plant a listening device in the car and follow Collins to see who his associates were. This led police to the remaining members of the gang. They then placed a recording device in Perkins’ Citroen Saxo.
The Readers were now discussing how to convert the confiscated items into cash. The gold bars and cash were quickly disposed of, but they were unsure what to do with the rest. The valuables were stored in two large wheelie bins and a duffel bag.
On May 8, Collins, Perkins and Jones met at the Castle pub, then moved to a nearby upscale bar. They planned to wait out the public outcry, not flaunt their wealth and avoid lifestyle changes that might attract suspicion.
But a week later, on May 15, Perkins’s car’s equipment recorded Jones boasting: “Listen to them… This is the biggest cash heist in history and now the biggest jewelry heist in the world…” And Perkins said the stolen gold could become his pension: “I’m going to melt my gold.”
Police also recorded Perkins and Jones recounting the headaches they felt when they heard the crashing and screeching sounds of machinery as it smashed through the tunnel walls.
“Maybe they thought they got away with it and became complacent and arrogant,” the detective said of the gang’s mistake.
On May 19, the Readers decided to gather the loot at an address on Sterling Street to divide it up. 200 police officers raided the location, arresting seven people and the loot.
According to police, the thieves learned their forensic knowledge from the book Forensic for Dummies , which was recovered from one of the members’ homes. In addition to removing fingerprints, they also used bathrooms on other floors, away from the warehouse, during their two nights of wandering around the building. There was no direct physical evidence that any of the thieves had ever been in the warehouse.
However, the Readers paid the price for their mistakes in the process of committing the crime. Peter Spindler, head of Scotland Yard’s criminal investigation department at the time, assessed: “They belong to an old era. A decade or two ago, there was no automatic number plate recognition technology or widespread surveillance cameras, otherwise they probably would have had a better chance of escaping.”
“They are criminals operating in the digital world but lack the knowledge to defeat digital detectives,” Spindler said.
Prosecutors called it “the biggest theft in British legal history.” Despite arresting the Readers, authorities recovered only £4.3 million worth of stolen goods hidden in members’ homes and a grave, according to Jones’ testimony.
Brian Reader is seen outside his home after being released in 2018. Photo: News Group Newspapers
On 9 March 2016, at Woolwich Crown Court, three members of the gang, Collins, Jones and Perkins, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit burglary and were each sentenced to seven years in prison. The ringleader, Reader, was sentenced to six years and three months in prison.
Wood and Lincoln were convicted of conspiracy to commit theft and conspiracy to conceal, convert or transfer stolen property. Lincoln was sentenced to seven years in prison, while Wood received six years.
In January 2018, Woolwich Crown Court ruled that Collins, Jones, Perkins and Reader must pay a total of £27.5m or face a further seven years in prison. Perkins died in prison in February 2018, a week after the verdict.
Reader was released on medical grounds in 2018, without having to return to prison despite failing to pay the £6.6m fine. Jones and Collins both had their sentences extended by more than six years for failing to pay compensation.
Three years after the theft, on 28 March 2018, Basil was identified as Michael Seed, 57, and arrested at his home in Islington. He was convicted of burglary and conspiracy to burglary and received two sentences of 10 years and 8 years, to run concurrently.
Another accomplice, Hugh Doyle, was convicted of concealing evidence, given a suspended prison sentence and fined £367.50.
Reader died of cancer in September 2023 at the age of 84, taking his secrets with him to the grave. No one knows exactly how much loot he stole, how, or where. Reader’s occupation was listed on his death certificate as “retired gardener.”
The Hatton Garden heist has been the subject of numerous television and film adaptations, including Hatton Garden: the Heist (2016), The Hatton Garden Job (2017), King of Thieves (2018), and Hatton Garden (2019).
