Original subtitles

It's one of England's most renowned banks,

and its supposedly theft-proof.

There's a reason as to why it's never been attempted.

It's down deep in the basement.

It's completely designed to be impregnable.

Then, a thief,

inspired by a Sherlock Holmes mystery,

attempts something outrageous.

His plan, on the surface, seems crazy.

The way they did it, the way they tunneled in...

It's an amazing piece of engineering.

Digging through eight tons of dirt,

they're confident they'll hit their own payday.

And then, everything starts to go wrong.

The tunnel could collapse, and they could be trapped.

And they've got no ventilation at all.

And they think, "It's gonna kill us."

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

The masterminds behind every great heist

see what most people don't.

Risking everything to pull off the score of a lifetime,

it takes a bold plan,

the right team,

and the skill to stay one step ahead of the law.

♪ ♪

[explosion]

♪ ♪

The safe deposit boxes here

at the Baker Street branch of Lloyds Bank,

where London's rich and powerful

stash their wealth and their secrets.

It's a tantalizing target for the right set of thieves.

And in '70s Britain, the number of bold thieves is growing.

♪ ♪

The early '70s have been described

as the hangover after the swinging '60s.

Unemployment was up.

Economic growth was down.

More so than ever, through popular culture,

through media, people were being exposed

to the high life,

to those with power and with wealth.

But yet, there were very few opportunities

to achieve such wealth through legitimate means.

So you're seeing a breed of developing criminals,

criminals who are learning skills.

These aren't people who just rob people in the street.

These are people who are organized,

working out how to do the big heists.

♪ ♪

The London underworld had been looking

at the Lloyds Bank for some time.

They knew there were lots of high value items

in this subterranean vault they would've loved to get at.

Lloyds Bank actively advertises to elite customers,

like celebrities and politicians.

There's gold. There's jewels.

There's all this wealth that's there

in these safety deposit boxes.

There's a very good reason why Lloyds Bank

is such a compelling target,

but there's actually an even better reason

as to why it's never been attempted.

♪ ♪

The Lloyds Bank on Baker Street

is probably one of the most secure banks

in England, let alone London.

It's completely designed to be impregnable.

And virtually no other bank had a vault like this.

♪ ♪

Its bomb-proof door weighs five tons.

Its steel reinforced concrete walls are three feet thick.

And its 1,000 safe deposit boxes

require two keys to open.

And then, there's the alarms.

There's also tremor alarms all around the vault,

so if anyone were to try and jackhammer

or force their way in,

then they're going to trigger these alarms

very quickly and get caught.

So this is like the Fort Knox of banks.

It's almost guaranteed

that any kind of bank robbery would be foiled

before they can even get to the vault door.

However, there was one criminal mastermind

who decided that he was up for the challenge.

Well, Anthony Gavin, on the surface,

looks a fairly ordinary kind of bloke

rather than a serious criminal.

He's born in a suburb of North London about 1933.

He'd had training in the royal fusiliers

in the British army.

We know that he was, therefore, disciplined,

intelligent.

And he knew the importance of teamwork.

Anthony Gavin is a tough guy.

He's somebody who will get things done.

And he's also someone who is looking

for that big hit that will make him rich.

He looks outside the box for inspiration

and finds it someplace surprising:

"The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes."

Tony Gavin, like a lot of people,

is a fan of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries.

Sherlock Holmes, another famous resident

of Baker Street,

was involved in an adventure

called "The Red-Headed League."

In it, a gang tunneled into a bank

from a neighboring building.

In this way, a Sherlock Holmes story

becomes a real-life inspiration to rob a bank.

But he's going to rewrite the ending.

♪ ♪

Gavin's Holmes-inspired plan isn't simple.

He needs to map a tunnel path

to a spot precisely below the vault.

He needs experts

with the right know-how to dig the tunnel.

He needs someone smart enough

to disable the series of sophisticated alarms.

What he needs is a team.

Anthony Gavin is particularly good at organizing.

He could bring all these things together.

He could get the equipment.

He knew how to get people

to the right place at the right time.

Anthony Gavin has got a great plan,

but he knows he can't do it alone.

He needs other people to help him.

♪ ♪

His first hire:

someone to pose as a customer

while getting precise details on the vault.

He chooses Reginald Tucker.

Reginald Tucker is somebody

who the police don't know anything about.

And that makes him ideal for Anthony Gavin.

He goes into Lloyds Bank, bold as brass,

and he opens an account with a fake name, G. Edwards.

Depositing £500 and dressed to the nines

as if he's a high member of British society,

he opens the account with no questions asked.

And once he's got the safety deposit box,

he can go in time after time to get those measurements

to plan out what the actual vault looks like inside.

Next up is a trusted friend, Mickey Gervaise,

AKA Skinny.

He's worked with Gavin on smaller jobs before,

but his real value is obvious.

He's a highly skilled alarm specialist.

Originally, he'd been working for a company called ADT,

which was an alarm company.

And then, he decided to do someone a favor,

who was a criminal, and he thought,

"I can make much more money from doing this."

Gavin assigns Gervaise a critical task:

figuring out how to get past the tremor alarms

so the team can breach the vault.

Trembler alarms are

a small piece of metal inside a spring.

If the device is shaken at all, the spring moves,

touches the metal, completes a circuit,

and sets off the alarm.

While Gervaise investigates the alarms

and Tucker scouts the vault,

Gavin searches for help

with the toughest part of the heist: tunneling.

He knows he needs some very specialized people

with some special skills.

He also knows that he needs to have

people that he can trust to not talk.

Gavin recruits two more men:

first, Brian Reader, a guy who can keep a secret,

and next, Little Legs, the tunneling expert,

whose short height makes being in tight spaces easier.

Because of some of the strategies employed

in pulling off this heist, we have to assume

that some of the team members had engineering backgrounds,

mining or quarry work backgrounds.

And also, they were using materials

that you couldn't find in just any hardware store.

If the five men managed to get inside,

they'll need someone on the outside to watch their backs.

The final member of Gavin's team is the lookout,

Bobby Mills.

With the team in place,

Reginald Tucker gathers the details on the vault.

He takes an umbrella

into the safety deposit box with him,

and he uses it to measure the dimensions of the room

to be able to precisely tell the team

exactly where they're gonna need to tunnel in.

And he does this a long while before the robbery.

So they know what they're dealing with,

and they start to think about how they're gonna get at it.

Tucker also learns about a security feature

that will be a big help.

The bank manager would say to him,

"And one of the great things about this bank

"is that we have a time lock, which goes on every weekend,

"and that cannot be opened by even me

"until the time it's designated.

"You can't open a time lock safe.

"It won't open till 10:00 on a Monday morning,

so everything is safe over the weekend."

So they knew that no one would be going into that safe

over the weekend.

But even with Tucker's successful recon work,

there are more puzzles to solve

before attempting this heist.

The bank's underground alarms are formidable.

They simply can't do the robbery

until they figure out how to overcome the trembler alarm.

And this is where their first stroke of luck

comes into place.

At the time that he's casing this bank for the robbery,

he sees that they're replacing a water main

right in front of the bank.

This digging, using pneumatic drills,

is, of course, going to set off the trembler alarms.

And it does just that.

The first time the police come out,

sirens blaring, and they inform the bank manager

that it is the drilling that has set off the alarm.

There's no robbery taking place.

Now, this happens on a number of occasions.

And each time, the police come out

but they have less and less concern about this.

The roadwork is a lucky break.

It makes the trembler alarms less concerning.

But Gavin still needs

to find a starting point for his tunnel.

Anthony Gavin chose that bank because he knew there were

many businesses opening and closing in the area.

And a short time later,

a business closes just two doors away from the bank.

It's called Le Sac.

And the gang moves in.

The advantage of Le Sac is it has a basement.

And that basement is in direct line

with the vault two doors up.

They need to have somebody to take out the lease

on the building and lease this building legitimately,

so Gavin enlists a silent partner.

This is somebody that nobody in the team

other than Gavin knows.

With a dig site secured,

Gavin and the team start the next phase.

To disguise their real mission,

they dress as contractors renovating the leather shop.

The basement of Le Sac is 40 feet away

from the vault underneath Lloyds Bank.

So this is going to be

an incredible feat of engineering.

And this was not something they did over one weekend.

They did it over a period of weeks.

They only dig at weekends

when they think very few people will notice.

Tunneling is slow, difficult work.

And they have to do it for 40 feet to reach the vault.

That's more than eight tons of dirt and bricks.

Then, one Sunday night,

the team's digging almost buries the whole plan.

So August the 15th, 1971,

proves to be a bit of a difficult day

because you can't dig a tunnel, especially when there's

lots of bricks and all that and you're chiseling them out.

And it makes noise. It makes vibrations.

And as they're moving past Le Sac, the leather goods,

they start to go underneath the Chicken Inn.

It's a fried chicken place.

And there's staff there on the weekends.

And they keep hearing all these noises, you see?

And they can't make out what it is.

So at one point, they actually go

and knock on the door of Le Sac

to see whether they know what the noise is.

But the robbery team are down in the basement.

They can't hear anything.

They don't know people are upstairs.

And they don't answer the door.

So the staff of the Chicken Inn,

they actually think about ringing the police.

Is the robbery about to be rumbled?

The stakes are so high at this moment.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

It's one month before the heist,

and the team's efforts

to tunnel their way to the Lloyds Bank vault

is attracting some unwanted attention.

A member of staff from the Chicken Inn

goes to investigate.

The stakes are so high at this moment.

Is he going to call the police?

Is he going to try and get through and into the shop?

♪ ♪

Gavin has no idea who's knocking,

but anyone who sees the basement

will know this isn't an ordinary renovation.

He apologizes for the noise.

And after some grumbling,

the Chicken Inn employee goes away.

That was a really close call.

So, again, this robbery team were very lucky.

And luck is an important part of crime.

Luck is also an important part of tunneling,

even for skilled diggers.

With layers of unstable dirt and debris

built up over centuries,

each brick they remove

could trigger a deadly collapse.

They're digging through Victorian buildings,

crumbling foundations.

Even though they had mining experts on the team,

there's always the danger

the tunnel could collapse and they could be trapped.

If the tunnel collapses onto them, it's game over.

No one's gonna call paramedics to tell them that,

"Hey, we have a person that is underground,

and he needs help."

This is not a glamorous robbery.

It's dark. It's claustrophobic.

It's hot. There's very little oxygen.

So they cleared the earth into sacks,

which they store on the side.

And as they get further in,

they start to use a trolley on pulley ropes

so that they can move the earth back.

They also send their recon man, Tucker,

to check the tunnel's progress from above ground.

Mapping out the inside of the vault

is only half of Reg Tucker's job.

The gang also need to know how far to dig.

Tucker paces the sidewalk

to determine how far the tunnel is from the vault.

Gavin needs these measurements,

along with compass readings, to keep the team on target.

Imagine months and months of digging

only to then pop up in the middle of Central London

on the pavement.

After nine weeks of dangerous work,

the team thinks they're just below the vault.

But before they try to breach it,

Gavin wants to make sure the tremor alarms

they hope are off are really off.

Gavin and the team believe

that the seismic alarms from the bank

either have to be turned down low or off completely

because of the construction that's continually

setting off these alarms in the bank.

Gervaise is able to make a discreet inquiry

followed with some money, of course,

to find out if the alarms have actually been switched off.

And as a stroke of luck, they've been turned off.

Because those tremor alarms have been deactivated,

there are no automatic systems

to detect their approach to the vault.

It's all set.

The team will have from Friday at 5:00 p.m.

until 10:00 a.m. Monday,

when the vault door's time lock will disengage.

They'll have an entire weekend to get rich.

♪ ♪

The following weekend,

five of the crew members enter the shop,

making their way into the tunnel.

Lookout Bobby Mills keeps watch from a rooftop above.

He has a walkie talkie to talk to them.

And he is keeping an eye on everyone coming and going.

And the word comes over the walkie talkies

from the lookout.

"There's no one around. Go."

♪ ♪

The heist is on.

All that stands between the crew

and the richest vault in England

is two feet of steel-reinforced concrete.

And this is where things get really difficult.

Breaching is basically using

the least amount of practical force

in gaining entry to a room or a structure.

So Gavin's first course of action

is mechanical breaching using a hydraulic jack.

They put the jack in place and start jacking it up.

It's a bit like if you're taking a wheel off a car.

It's that kind of jack.

But the jack isn't strong enough,

because unknown to the gang,

underneath where they are is an old spring.

The ground is soft. It gives way.

They're pushing and shoving this thing,

and it just won't crack the floor.

So they have a real problem.

Thinking of a plan B--

Gavin's always got something up his sleeve--

they decide to use a thermal lance.

Now, this is a really high-end piece of equipment.

And so, they try

and cut through the solid floor by using it.

but the space is too small and the fumes are thick.

And poisonous gas is coming out from it.

And it should never be used in an enclosed space.

A thermal lance is like a hot glue gun,

except it spits out molten steel and aluminum.

The 8,000-degree mixture

can slice through steel and solid rock.

It can get them into the vault quickly,

or it could get them all killed.

It potentially could blow up,

because you're messing with pressurized gas.

You can't just go in there

wearing what you're wearing right now

and start using the torch

because it produces a lot of slag,

hot molten rocks and debris,

especially on that angle.

If you're trying to reach that way,

all that stuff is gonna fall down on you.

And they've got no ventilation,

of course, because they're in a tunnel.

So they think, "It's gonna kill us."

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

Two and a half hours into the heist,

the plan to break into the Lloyds of London vault

is breaking down.

After a setback with the jack,

Anthony Gavin and his crew are trying

to cut through the concrete floor with a thermal lance.

♪ ♪

It fills the tunnel with fumes

and it doesn't seem to be making any progress at all.

Still, that concrete and steel floor resists them.

[coughing]

As his crew chokes on toxic fumes,

Gavin calls for a stop.

And they think, "We haven't got enough time.

"We can't do this.

"It's gonna take us days to cut through.

"It's gonna kill us.

"It's really dangerous

"'cause we're breathing all these fumes

"and the heat is tremendous.

"So what are we going to do?

We better look for a plan C."

♪ ♪

As his crew chokes on toxic fumes,

Gavin calls for a stop and a change of tactic.

They're behind schedule

and their lance isn't exactly silent.

That leaves one option, and it's a little less subtle.

And that's when they pull out explosives.

Now, this is really risky, really dangerous,

but they've got desperate.

Plan A hasn't worked.

Plan B hasn't worked.

So they move on to plan C.

♪ ♪

It may seem a bit dramatic,

but they thought, "Well, this is the only way

we're gonna get through, is to blow a hole through the floor."

So when it comes to explosive operations,

it is not necessarily hard to do.

It is just very easy to mess up.

One small move, one small error,

and you are done.

Imagine the conditions underground.

The air is thick with fumes

from trying to use the thermal lance.

And so, what they then try to do

is they drill holes into the floor of the vault.

And they insert gelignite.

They use gelignite,

which is basically a safer cousin of dynamite.

It's malleable enough for you to mold it

in shapes that you needed.

In this case, they were able to insert it

into those drill holes.

When detonated, the force of the explosion

should travel upwards,

not blow back through the tunnel

and into the basement.

Using explosives in a tunnel

is a great way to kill yourself.

They retreat down the tunnel

to what they hope will be a safe distance.

They've got the lookout on a building.

And he's watching out.

So it becomes a question.

Are they gonna blow themselves up,

or are they gonna bury themselves alive?

♪ ♪

[explosion]

♪ ♪

So they've done it, finally done it.

♪ ♪

And there's this heart-stopping moment,

this moment of elation that all the work,

they finally got in this place.

They know no one else could do this.

Through the haze from the explosion,

the Baker Street burglars get their first glimpse inside--

a thousand safe deposit boxes holding millions in loot.

Once the gang are inside the vault,

it should be plain sailing, but it isn't.

And the vault, which is a relatively small room

and, of course, completely airtight,

is filled with the choking rubble and fumes

of the explosion that they just used to blast their way in.

♪ ♪

The task ahead is huge.

They still need to go and break

into hundreds of safety deposit boxes.

And they have a decision to make.

Do they stay and take what they can in those conditions,

or do they leave, get some fresh air, get some rest,

and then come back calmly a few hours later

to do a much more professional job?

Gavin calls lookout Bobby Mills on the walkie talkie

to discuss the change in plans.

What Gavin and the crew don't know

is that an amateur radio enthusiast has tuned in.

♪ ♪

Robert Rowlands is convinced

he's listening in on a raid taking place.

♪ ♪

And at first, he thinks he's got--

it's a radio play about some criminal activity.

And then, he starts to realize, it's not a radio play.

It's actually real life.

He thinks it's his local tobacconists.

He contacts his local police station,

but they're not interested.

So he said, "Well, OK, sir.

"Well, if you hear any more,

try and record it so we can hear it."

And so, he does.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Bobby Mills is stood on top of the building.

He doesn't quite understand the conditions

that the men have been working through.

We then hear this incredible exchange of words

as they negotiate what they're going to do next.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

[coughing]

It's all horrible. They're all coughing.

And then, the lookout, he's had his binoculars on all day,

and his eyes are beginning to-- he puts it like "organ stops."

But what are they gonna do? Are they gonna press on?

But here, we begin to witness the team falling apart

at the most crucial moment.

You can hear the stress in the voices.

They're swearing.

They're becoming quite angry with one another.

And one of them commits the cardinal sin.

They mention one of the team members' names.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

[explosion]

Anthony Gavin's crew is finally

inside the Baker Street bank vault,

but toxic fumes are suffocating the crew.

So when the lookout insists

the guys on the inside continue,

the ringleader loses his cool.

So it all gets a bit tense between them.

And at one point, which you can hear on the recording,

Anthony Gavin actually speaks the name

of the person who's on the lookout,

which rather gives the game away as to who was there.

♪ ♪

They're all exhausted,

and they realize the clock is ticking.

But what are they gonna do?

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Though Bobby Mills backs down,

eavesdropper Robert Rowlands doesn't.

He has the team's transmissions

captured on tape and calls Scotland Yard.

They send a couple of police officers around

to see Robert Rowlands.

And he then plays them the recording.

And they begin to see what his point is,

that there appears to be a robbery going on somewhere,

probably a bank.

So Rowlands, being very well-versed in ham radio

and realizing that these robbers

are talking over walkie talkies,

knows that it has to be very close.

So he tells this to the police officers and says,

"Look, you need to check banks within a one-mile radius."

And they dismiss it.

They say, "Well, you know, we know what we're doing."

♪ ♪

After more than six hours of radio silence,

the heist team is broadcasting again.

And this time, a bigger audience tunes in.

Detectives realize that zoning in

on the source of these radio emissions

that are being picked up by Robert Rowlands

is absolutely vital,

and they think about what equipment they could use.

There are radio detector vans,

so they try to get hold of one of these.

When the mobile radio detective unit

drives through a neighborhood,

police can pinpoint the source of transmissions

in less than 15 minutes.

Law enforcement calls this technique fox hunting.

But finding this fox isn't easy.

They had real trouble getting hold

of the chap who was actually driving this thing,

because instead of being on duty,

he'd gone off with the van to see his mistress.

♪ ♪

It's a huge setback for the police.

But, of course, it's a massive boost for the robbers.

♪ ♪

The crew isn't even aware

that this cat and mouse game is happening.

They're too busy sorting through the tape

and finding some unusual items.

In the safety deposit boxes,

people leave all kinds of things--

valuables, jewels, heirlooms.

But other things that people keep in safety deposit boxes

are their secrets.

It's not just legitimate people

who like using safety deposit boxes

but all sorts of criminals,

so besides lots of cash, they're also finding drugs.

I was told by people who were on that robbery

what they did find was some compromising pictures

of what was a famous 1970s politician

in a compromising situation.

And they deliberately left them out

so the police could see them.

♪ ♪

While Scotland Yard checks banks all over town,

Gavin and his men are cleaning out the Lloyds vault.

They don't realize the police are

monitoring their communications and closing in.

Then, the crew catches another break.

They decide to change the frequency

on the walkie talkies.

♪ ♪

Over.

♪ ♪

The robbery is under way.

They only have hours in order to catch them red-handed.

So the police officers call the bank managers

of each bank.

They open up.

They take a look, and then they move on.

Eventually, they actually go to Lloyds Bank.

♪ ♪

They're in the vault.

And then, the lookout says, "The Old Bill are outside."

That's the police.

♪ ♪

Can you imagine?

They're surrounded by jewels and money and unknown riches,

and the police are right at the front door.

The police is being let in by the manager.

And the manager is letting them through

so they can get down into the vault.

♪ ♪

They're all quiet, not making the sound.

♪ ♪

You could probably hear their hearts beating

as they're waiting to see what happens.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

[explosion]

It's taken months for the team to get inside the vault.

And now, intercepted radio communications

bring the police right outside it.

♪ ♪

Those inside can only wait, wondering,

can the police smell the dust or the fumes?

Will they be able to get inside and catch them red-handed?

Can they hear anything?

Will there be any signs of break-in from the outside?

The police look at each other.

There's no sign of any break-in,

as far as they know. They don't realize

that someone's got in through the floor.

This is why it's such an ingenious heist.

The vault is on a time delay lock.

That means the bank manager can't actually open the vault.

There's no alarms going off.

There's no damage to the vault door.

The bank manager and the police leave.

And they move on to the next bank to check that one.

Unbelievably, the team have got away with it.

So the lookout says, "You're all clear, boys."

♪ ♪

So they now get on with the really crucial stuff,

which is emptying the safety deposit boxes.

♪ ♪

The police visit bank after bank after bank,

hoping to catch the robbers red-handed.

But by Sunday evening, they have no result.

And they're wondering, on Monday morning,

which bank will open up to find its been robbed?

After 30 hours in the vault,

the gang is ready to make their escape.

But Gavin can't resist leaving a challenge behind.

He scrolls "let's see how Sherlock Holmes

solves this one" on the wall.

Having taken as much jewelry and money

and everything else that was in those boxes

as they could manage in the time that they had,

they cover up their tracks.

They wipe down the equipment

so that there's no fingerprints

or other evidence that they could leave.

And it's thought that they then go

to a North London premises

in order to divide up the loot.

♪ ♪

It's Monday morning,

and bank employees arrive for work at 10:00 a.m. sharp.

The same Lloyds Bank manager

who reported no problems the day before

makes his way to the vault.

The bank manager and his deputy

go down into the basement, down into the safety vault.

And they stand outside the time lock,

wait for it to come to the point where they can open it.

And click.

♪ ♪

And what they see inside, their jaws drop,

because it's complete mayhem.

All the things that have been thrown around.

There's all the rubble from the explosion.

There's bits of safety deposit box.

And, of course, they phone the police.

News of the raid breaks.

It's across all the newspapers,

and it becomes known as "The Walkie Talkie Heist."

When the story breaks, there is a media frenzy.

It's quite exciting.

As that happens,

people who had safety deposit boxes in the vault

start talking to the police.

And the police begin to learn how much was stolen.

The number goes up and up and up by millions.

♪ ♪

The clients who typically rented

the safety deposit boxes

were from the highest end of British society.

When the story broke, it was clear

that not everybody wanted to reveal what was in the boxes.

And that allows all sorts of conspiracy stories

to begin to circulate.

♪ ♪

Not only were they losing their valuables

but also possible secrets

that could cause them to be blackmailed over.

Who exactly had secrets there

that are now out in the public?

Was there some racy photos there?

Were there some things that the royal family

wouldn't want to get out?

According to my sources, they each got--

I mean, it's a lot of money in the 1970s--

£138,000,

plus about four times that amount in jewelry.

♪ ♪

Police don't need to be Sherlock Holmes

to figure out the first step in solving this crime.

It's tracing the tunnel back here to Le Sac.

But the team scrubbed this place so clean,

Scotland Yard now has to do their own digging.

♪ ♪

When the police discovered the robbery,

they realized that the lease holder

would probably know something about a 40-foot tunnel

being dug in the basement of their shop.

Benjamin Wolfe had been recruited by Anthony Gavin.

It was his role

to secure a premises near to the bank.

He signed the lease on Le Sac in his own name.

♪ ♪

So the robbery is a really major embarrassment

for Scotland Yard, and they got a lot of warning

from Robert Rowlands when he was listening on the radio.

So they throw everything they've got in

to try to locate him.

So it's very easy to trace Benjamin Wolfe

and ask him what was happening.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

[explosion]

After the Baker Street burglars

make off with millions,

Scotland Yard detectives question Benjamin Wolfe,

the silent partner

who made Gavin's impossible scheme possible.

♪ ♪

When they questioned him,

he claimed that he just rented the place,

therefore, and left it empty

and he didn't realize anybody had been in there.

He stuck to his story.

He was simply a local businessman.

He was waiting renovations to happen in his shop.

And at no moment did he give up the gang.

He was the perfect accomplice.

♪ ♪

But they put him under surveillance.

And that gives them some clues

as to the people that he is in contact with.

And they start to learn who he knows.

And the same names keep coming up.

One of those names is Anthony Gavin,

whose voice sounds an awful lot

like the walkie talkie operator in Le Sac.

We thought we'd come out with a range of meeting places

for you so that we can go where we're gonna go.

Sorry about last night, mate.

Within weeks of the heist,

Scotland Yard seems to know who the ringleader is.

But they're slow to act.

♪ ♪

It was so embarrassing.

The home secretary would've been on

to the commissioner at Scotland Yard.

"Why haven't you got these robbers?"

This wasn't police incompetence.

This was police corruption.

And some individuals had a lot to gain

by covering up the robbery.

Could the lack of arrests be caused

by some investigators blackmailing suspects

to get their own piece of the pie?

One of the officers that was in charge of the investigation

was DI Alec Eist.

He was probably the most corrupt police officer

in the Met in his time.

Over decades, it's thought that he protected

some of Britain's most notorious criminals

for his own personal gain.

Corruption was certainly a factor in this.

And it turns out to be a factor in the sentencing.

Some of the robbery teams, they get arrested.

And it's said that they paid to get the charges watered down.

But not everyone associated with the Baker Street job

escapes the consequences.

In late October, seven weeks after the heist,

the ringleader, Anthony Gavin,

and Reginald Tucker, the inside man, are arrested.

Both plead guilty

and are sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Wolfe goes to trial and loses,

but he only gets eight years due to his advanced age.

A couple of people got off completely.

And it's said because they paid very large sums

in bribery, they weren't ever charged.

And one of the biggest ironies of all,

Mickey Gervaise,

the man hired to avoid the seismic sensor alarms,

avoids arrest.

Mickey Gervaise, the alarm specialist,

never got done for this robbery.

Now whether he paid off police officers, we don't know.

He's one of the major burglars and robbers of his time.

He disappeared about ten years

after he'd been involved with the Baker Street robbery.

And no one has ever seen him since.

♪ ♪

The mystery that continues to surround this case

allows multiple conspiracy theories.

Is this about protecting the royal family?

Is this police corruption of the highest order?

All of the documentation around the investigation

is held in the National Archives.

It's heavily redacted.

You don't really understand exactly what happened.

Now, these documents are under embargo for a hundred years.

They won't be released until at least 2071.

What's being covered up?

Why is this still a national secret?

♪ ♪

Out there somewhere is someone who could tell us

exactly what happened and cut away from the myth

and let us know

what the true story of the Baker Street robbery was.

♪ ♪

This is a real old school heist.

It's the kind of case that has been made into film.

It's the kind of case that's been written about.

It grabs the imagination,

not just because of the daring,

not just because of how they did it

and the technical ingenuity they used,

but also because there are

so many unanswered questions even now,

and some won't be answered until much later this century.

♪ ♪

The final tally stolen from Lloyds Bank on Baker Street

is said to be £8 million.

That's $100 million today.

Only a fraction of it was ever recovered.

But it's not the record haul or even the bold planning

that makes the heist memorable.

These criminals channeled Sherlock Holmes

and played a cat and mouse game with Scotland Yard

and won in one of history's greatest heists.

♪ ♪

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