BRITAIN: A gang which tried to steal millions of pounds worth of diamonds and gold in one of Britain's biggest ever attempted robberies was jailed yesterday for a total of 66 years.
The masked raiders smashed a van through the shutters of a Heathrow Airport warehouse and tried to make off with gold bars, diamonds and foreign currency. Had they succeeded, police believe, the haul could have been worth £33 million (€48.7 million).
But the plan was foiled by detectives sitting in wait near the Swissport cargo warehouse on May 17th last year.
They arrested six men in a "classic intelligence-led operation" and later tracked down two brothers who had tried to escape.
Jailing the eight at Kingston Crown Court, Judge Edward Southwell said they had been playing for high stakes and were motivated purely by greed. But he also said the attempt was "a glorified ram raid" and the gang's behaviour had hardly been refined.
The court heard how the men planned the raid in advance using stolen vehicles which had their registration plates swapped with those of identical models.
They also used "dirty phones" - mobile phones with no registered user - and gathered information from an inside man at the warehouse.
The gang knew Monday mornings were busy, with a regular large delivery arriving for temporary storage in the warehouse vaults.
They also carried out what may have been a dry run, driving a van into the compound exactly as they would do almost two weeks later.
On the day of the raid, workers at the warehouse had just unloaded a consignment of Peruvian gold bars which had arrived on a KLM flight.
Eight men dressed in black leapt out of a white van which had smashed through the shutters of the loading bay where the gold was sitting.
But unknown to them, police were lying in wait and rounded up six men, later arresting two brothers.