In 2000 the Millennium Dome was built. It was to be a centre for tourism, a mass attraction full of cultural significance. Unfortunately, despite it's best intentions, it was changed into the O2 arena and has since enjoyed immense success as a centre stage to legendary stars.
However, in the same space of time that numbers were dwindling and debate was rife about what to do with the tent-like dome, a group of thugs were planning to rob the place of the Millennium Star diamond - worth a whopping £300 million.
With the use of gas bombs, fireworks to eliminate evidence, rams and clever ploys to disrupt security, the group had already failed twice at the robbery. The first time hilariously down to a member of public stealing the keys to the lorry leaving the thieves unable to move the most crucial part of their venture - a white pick-up van with a make-shift ram stuck on the back of it.
However, on 7th November when the thieves launched their plans little were they aware of how much the place they were planning on raiding knew about their operation. Having picked up on the failed attempts earlier on in the year, the police were desperate to catch who might be involved in the robberies. Using CCTV, known convicts were seen scouting the area out where the diamond was, they were followed around the building as they surveyed the best point of entry, and they established the entry and exit transportation - the use of a speedboat and a JCB. They pulled this information together alongside weeks of undercover surveillance of the thieves at work in a farm near to the Dome. So when the JCB was watched moving from it's home at 8.43am on that morning, the police had the thieves in the palm of their hands - they were gonna catch them with their hands in the cookie jar so to speak.
As it was, the operation went smoothly with no-one being hurt. The criminals broke through by ramming perplex doors down and going straight for their destination where they managed to get through the 'guaranteed 35minutes to break using a sledgehammer' glass in 35s with their own heat device and hammer. Luckily they were caught and confined to prison for many years and that the diamond they thought they were going to steal had been a replica ever since it was moved back there from a brief excursion somewhere else.
And why am I telling you all of this?
I find this story incredibly interesting. It goes to show yet again, that no matter how much cunning and intelligence criminals have and how useless the policemen actually appear to be, it's always the latter that wins through. All the thieves turn into is a good entertainment story. You also marvel at several things. 1) How you go about getting that idea into your head in the first place - why would you want to rob something that blatantly would be breaching high security? 2) How would you go about recruiting people to do that knowing full well you're all for it because in the end it's every man for himself. And 3) what did they hope to achieve by doing this? A stolen diamond will always be damaged goods especially in such a high profile heist as this.
I'd like to get into the psychology of these criminals. To find out what exactly is going on in their minds whilst coming up with the plan, putting the plan into action and what they feel afterwards. Relief? Guilt? Glee?
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