Hatton Garden Robbery: Was it REALLY about Jewellery?

According to wiki the Baker Street robbery was the burglary of the safe deposit boxes at the Baker Street, London branch of Lloyds Bank, on the night of 11 September 1971. (It was 9/11)

The robbers had rented a leather goods shop named Le Sac, two doors north from the bank, and tunnelled a distance of approximately 50 feet (15 m) passing under the intervening Chicken Inn restaurant. To avoid being overheard, they only dug during weekends. They initially used a thermal lance to try to break into the vault but ultimately had to use explosives.

Robert Rowlands was a ham radio operator who lived in a fifth floor flat on Wimpole Street. He overheard conversations between the robbers and their rooftop lookout at 11:15 pm. He contacted local police, who did not take him seriously but suggested that he tape record the conversations while the robbery was in progress. There was however insufficient information to identify which bank was being robbed.

At 1 am, Rowlands contacted Scotland Yard, who immediately sent officers to his flat in Wimpole Street.

At 2 am, a senior police officer alerted radio detector vans to track down the gang’s exact location. Police checked the 750 banks within 10 miles of Rowlands’ receiver, including the Baker Street bank. At the time, the thieves were still in the vaults but the police failed to realise this because the security door was still locked. The thieves got away with £1.5m cash (2010: £16.5m) and valuables from over 260 safe deposit boxes. The total haul was believed to be near £3m. 2010: £33.1m.

Aftermath

It has often been reported that after four days of news coverage British authorities issued a D-Notice, requesting that such reporting be discontinued for reasons of national security and the story disappeared from newspapers. It is claimed by national newspapers in recent years, that some of the security boxes contained embarrassing or nationally sensitive material namely compromising sexual photographs of Queen Elisabeth II‘s sister, the late Princess Margaret, and that the purpose of the request was thus to protect the British Royal Family.

Rowlands, the aforementioned ham radio operator, claims that the police attempted to prevent him from talking to the press by means of the D-Notice, which he felt was an attempt to hide police incompetence. He also claims that police threatened to prosecute him for listening to an unlicensed radio station. An investigation some years later showed that a request had never been made to the D-Notice committee at that time. Furthermore, a D-Notice has no legal status, being a mere request and not a legally enforceable order. The Times newspaper was still reporting about the case over two months later.

Hatton Garden ringleader Brian Reader also masterminded Lloyds Baker Street heist 45 years ago

Paul Lashmar reveals that the same man masterminded both raids Fri 15 Jan 2016

Brian Reader who had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit burglary over the raid at Hatton Garden Safety Deposit in April 2015. The burglary, which took place over the Easter weekend 2015, saw jewellery and valuables worth an estimated 14 million GBP ($21.3 million, 20 million euros) stolen.

READ MORE Two Hatton Garden jewellery burglars ‘walked off job on eve of heist’

The Baker Street Robbery has more recently become famous because of the 2008 film Bank Job which was based on the heist and also a Channel 5 documentary special at the end of last year. Until today, no one has publicly connected the 1971 raid with the 2015 Hatton Garden Safety Deposit thefts, but Reader was key to both.The modus operandi of the two is strikingly similar and, 44 years on, Baker Street was being used by the “mastermind” Reader as the perfect template. Both were carried out over a weekend; both involved a gang tunnelling into a safety deposit vault using heavy equipment; and both hauls were enormous.The Baker Street robbery was a cause célèbre at the time and it was said the gang left a cheeky message on the bank vault walls: “Let’s see how Sherlock Holmes solves this one”. A radio ham had picked up the gang’s walkie-talkie transmissions but the police failed to catch them red-handed. Only afterwards were three arrested and eventually jailed but only £250,000 of the proceeds were recovered. READ IN FULL

Hatton Garden Heist leader ‘found sick pics of Tory child abuser’ in 1971 raid

Greatest Robbery Baker St Documentary

THE BANK JOB

Watch Full Movie

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