How Eight Elderly Men Called The Grandpa Gang Almost Got Away With A Jewel Heist

Know what most men in their 60s and 70s don't do? Decide to rob a bank. And yet, in 2015, eight elderly men almost pulled off the biggest jewelry heist in British history, known as The Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Box Robbery. This was no small job, and required both heavy lifting and extreme cleverness, yet these old men very nearly got away with it. Some of the facts about the great Hatton Garden Heist are enough to leave you speechless.

Not only is this one of the few elderly British jewel heist examples in history, it's also the one with the biggest score. The deposit they were breaking into was heavily guarded for a reason, and these men managed to smuggle out millions and millions of dollars in jewels and cash. You might think of old men robbing jewels as just plain silly, but they cleaned out 73 boxes before escaping.

Whether you see these old men as the protagonists in the story, or as the antagonists, it's hard to deny the whole thing seems like something from fiction.  But that just makes the Hatton Garden jewelry robbery all the more intriguing.

If you've seen the original Oceans 11, you might recall the would-be thieves used garbage bins to try to transport their loot. It didn't work out so well for them, but it worked out splendidly for the Grandpa Gang.

When the Grandpa Gang first arrived on scene, they got out of a white rented van, unloaded bags, tools, and of course, garbage bins. They brought them to the fire escape and left them there. Surveillance footage then showed them eventually coming back out, and loading tools and equipment into the van. They wheeled the garbage bins to the van, and it was obvious they were much heavier. No one batted an eye as they loaded up, because they were dressed as maintenance men, so it was easy for them to work without attracting too much attention. From there, they sped away into the night with their loot.

While the Grandpa Gang finally was eventually caught, they got to savor sweet, wealthy freedom for more than a month. The Hatton Garden investigative teams began looking into the crimes right away, and it didn't take them long to get leads, but because the gang had done such an in-depth planning job, it took quite a while to put all the pieces together. They had to trace the car, examine all the surveillance photos, set up cameras and microphones to record conversations, then wait for the men to talk about the crime so they'd have evidence for an arrest. 

One of the things that makes this heist so unusual and infamous is the ages of the people who carried it out. Of the eight men involved, all but one of the men were over the age of 50, and the majority were over 60. Terry Perkins was 67, John "Kenny" Collins was 75, Daniel Jones was 61, William "Billy the Fish" Lincoln was 60, Carl Wood was 59, and Hugh Doyle was 49, and 'Guvnor' Brian Reader was 76. The other thief, only known as Basil, does not have a known age.

Reader - the oldest and the original mastermind behind the scheme - was enjoying his retirement at the time of the heist. Although most of the men had a rather shady past, people who knew them described them as harmless, friendly, and kind; not at all the sort of people you'd expect to rob a jewelry deposit. This facade of mild old age actually played a major part in how they were able to manage the job.

This robbery was not a simple smash and grab, and the kind of physical activity needed to pull it off was hardly easy for men of their age. When they first got into the building, they called the elevator, and then disabled it on the second floor. They then pried open the elevator doors and repelled down the elevator shaft about 14 feet to the basement. From there, they opened the steel shutter covering the door leading to the vault and disable the alarm by cutting the telephone wires. The alarm did sent an alert to the monitoring company, but not in time to stop them from getting away with the jewels.

After they drilled holes in the back of the safe, three circular holes overlapping side by side, they had to crawl through the tight opening, of only 10 by 18 inches. Then, the man inside had to smash open the deposit boxes and pass all the jewels through to their partners. 

When planning a major heist, it stands to reason you would take time to prepare. The "Grandpa Gang," as they're sometimes known, were extremely patient. They waited and planned for three years until they were sure everything was perfect.

In 2012, Daniel Jones - one of the ringleaders - first brought up the idea to a few others. It began as a simple musing by a retired man, but he couldn't get the thought out of his head. When he found that others had interest in the plan as well, he started the initial reconnaissance. And it took a whole lot of reconnaissance. The men would go in to observe the Hatton Garden hours, how workers moved, and began to do research on the vault itself. Before long, Jones was beginning to research and buy equipment online, and they had a plan to complete the plan a few years down the line. 

There were no signs of breaking and entering at the bank, and the front door had not been breached by force. So, how did they manage to get inside? The police said it did not look like an inside job, so they had to have tricked their way into the building. And that is precisely what happened.

No one ever looks twice at an aging maintenance man or janitor. They seem harmless, and given the age of these men, they probably didn't seem capable of doing something so criminal. It was because of this, as well as clever planning, the men were able to just walk into the building disguised as municipal workers. They wore reflective yellow vests that said "gas" on the back, hard hats, and white surgical masks to keep their identities hidden. Basil simply stayed in the building after people had gone home, and then let the rest of the men in through the fire escape.

So how many valuables were in the score? Well, it was the biggest jewel heist in England's history. Some reports estimate about £40 million in jewels was lifted, others say about £7 million in valuables was taken. Plus there was a whole mess of cash that was taken as well. In the end, the crew cracked open all the safety deposit boxes they could out of the roughly thousand inside the vault. It came to 73 boxes before they had to run, and this was enough to total £200 million worth of valuables, gems, and cash, according to some sources.

As Reader saw it, if you wanted to steal diamonds, you wanted the diamond of drills to do it. He'd had experience with robbery before in his younger years, though nothing of this magnitude, and he decided to research what sorts of drills he could buy online. He finally settled on the Hilti DD350 diamond coring drill to go through the back of the vault to get at the jewels inside. 

Unfortunately, the eventual attempt was fraught with issues, and one of them turned out to be the drill. When they initially tried to drill through on April 4, 2015, their placement was a bit off, and they instead drilled into the rear of the cabinet made of steel they couldn't get through. They prepared to use the drill again, but the pump jammed, rendering the drill completely useless. Eventually, they decided they had to give up and try again the next day with a better functioning drill.

While the whole event sounds pretty "cool," the fact is it had real, lasting damage on the bank, as well as the people who had things stored there. This wasn't just cash they were stealing, but actual, real valuables, including a few objects that are utterly irreplaceable and historically relevant.

Many of the deposit boxes contained diamonds and gems from jewel traders in the area, all of whom took major losses to their businesses. One man was an an Orthodox Jewish diamond dealer, whose family had escaped Nazi Germany. They'd sewn diamonds into their clothing in order to preserve some of their family's valuables, and the diamonds were then stored in Hatton Garden. Those same diamonds were stolen and never recovered. Another box belonged to an Indian family who was saving gold jewelry for a dowry for their daughter. Without the jewelry, they feared for their child's future. In other words, this heist hurt a lot of people, not just the bank.

There are some advantages to being a senior citizen, and one of them is transportation options. As the oldest member of the group, Reader easily old enough to have a senior citizen bus pass, which he used regularly. While others in the group were discussing rental cars to get to and from the scene, Reader was busy checking bus routes, trying to take full advantage of that senior discount.

On the night of the first robbery attempt on April 2, 2015, everyone else transported themselves in groups, but not Reader. Instead, he waited at the No. 96 bus stop near his home in Kent. He then swiped his senior pass, boarded the bus, and took it all the way to Hatton Garden, an 80-minute journey. Lucky for him the bus ride was free because of his age. Forget all those youngsters renting cars for a jewel heist, public transportation is the way to go!