It happened in England in 2015. “Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd” was a very respectable and reliable company, operating for a century. It rented safe deposit boxes for storing gold, jewelry, precious stones and other valuables. Its vault was located at 88-90 Hatton Garden and was considered impregnable. Until one day, over the Easter “long weekend” of 2015, a gang of old men proved otherwise. The gang consisted of 8 members and all of them were already involved in crime in one way or another.

The leader was Brian Reeder, born in 1939. This old recidivist back in the 80's was convicted for causing the death of a policeman, and also participated in the famous robbery of a warehouse at Heathrow Airport in 1983. It should be noted that then 26 million pounds sterling worth of gold was stolen and most of the loot was never found. In recent years, Reeder tried to appear as a reformed citizen, was the owner of a small firm selling used cars. At the robbery of the vault in Hatton Garden, he came by bus, borrowing someone else's bus pass. Reeder dressed brightly for the robbery, wearing a red scarf, which the police caught on surveillance cameras and later found at his home.

Terence Perkins(Terry) was born on April 4, 1948. Terry was also an old-time burglar. He once escaped from prison. To be more precise, he did not return from a vacation, in which he went shortly before the end of his imprisonment (England, such England, they allow prisoners to go on vacation). For the next 16 years he hid at his mother's, but not that he tried to cover his tracks - he worked as a driver and even visited a doctor under his real name. The police did not bother to look for him - he was arrested only in 2012 and sent to serve his time. The main business of his life - as a young man he took part in the famous robbery of the “Security Express” vault in the London borough of Shoreditch. Then right in broad daylight was stolen £ 6 million - it was the largest stolen amount of cash in British history. Remarkably, he went on the case on his birthday. Apparently this was his thing, as he went to the Hotton Garden robbery again on his birthday.

John Kenneth Collins, born in 1940 and known simply as Kenny, was a simple guy - he had been in prison six times, all for petty robbery and theft. His task in the Hotton Garden case was quite simple - he had to park near the place of robbery and in case of alarm to radio his accomplices about the danger. Basically, “stand guard.” But even with this simple task he coped so badly - fell asleep at the wheel of his van during the robbery. Age, you know. He also failed to use the loot - his part of the booty was found at his home. William Lincoln, born in 1955, nicknamed “Billy the Fish”, was the gang's assistant who was supposed to drive it away from the crime scene. As Billy himself admitted, he was not a man of the greatest intelligence. In addition, he suffered from osteoarthritis, he had two hip joints replaced. Kenny, whose sister Fish was cohabiting with, brought him in to work.

There were also two minor characters, Carl Wood and Hugh Doyle - they are only interesting because they were both under 60 years old. Hugh didn't go on the case at all - he was required to provide a room to store most of the loot. Carl, who was a buddy of Danny Jones, suffered from Crohn's disease, lived on the unemployment benefit and had many debts, to pay off which and got involved in the robbery as an extra pair of hands. The last and most mysterious figure was a man nicknamed Basil, whose real name was not known to any of the accomplices. The police had been looking for him much longer than the others. All they knew about him was that he had disabled the alarm system and helped the robbers to get in. That's how the Dream Team turned out!

Before setting out on the case, the gang made long and thorough preparations. During the search in Brian Reeder's house they found books on the illegal diamond trade, a diamond tester, diamond magazines and other useful things. A book called “Forensics for Dummies” was also found. It was bought to learn how to avoid leaving DNA evidence at crime scenes. Collins rode around the vault building all day long, observing and carefully recording the schedule of employees coming and going from work. Police then saw his van more than once on security camera footage taken days before the robbery. One Hutton Garden employee recalled during the investigation seeing someone who looked like Perkins - in a work uniform - fixing an elevator. The old gangsters were also able to visit the holy of holies - the very basement where the valuables were kept. It wasn't a difficult job at all - they just pretended to be potential customers and came to see what the vault looked like from the inside. They discussed the details of the upcoming robbery at regular meetings held in the pub and also remotely. Their cell phone records showed that they had been communicating a lot in the last days before the robbery.

April 2, 2015 was a Thursday - the last working day before the four-day Easter weekend. The building, which held many millions of pounds worth of jewels, was left simply locked for four days - protected by steel doors, concrete walls and an alarm system. There were no guards. None at all! This was more than enough time for the intruders to carry out their plan. Toward Thursday evening, shortly before the last employee left the building, Basil went inside, disguised as a telecommunications company employee, and disabled the alarm system with a cell phone jammer. The rest of the robbers followed, changing into their work uniforms and taking the wheelie bins that held the equipment. Having penetrated the building, the intruders climbed into the elevator shaft and lowered a drill to drill a hole in the vault, which was located in the basement, and began drilling a half-meter thick concrete wall with an industrial drill. However, they were unsuccessful - they managed with the concrete wall, but it turned out that there was also a metal grate. After working until 8 a.m., the burglars left the building empty-handed on the first day.

At noon on Friday, they returned with a bigger machine. Only without Carl Wood, who was frightened by the night's failure and did not risk a second attempt. The second attempt was successful - the intruders were able to drill a hole in the concrete wall, enough for a man to get through it and handle the bars. They then removed the contents of the 73 lockers without any hindrance, the value of which the court in 2017 estimated at £25 million. Gold, jewelry, precious stones, expensive watch collections, cash and other valuables. The robbers hauled this goodness away in the same wheelie garbage cans in which they brought the equipment. They successfully removed everything and divided it into parts - everyone had to hide his part until the noise subsided. The full inventory of the stolen goods, by the way, was never published. Besides, it was difficult for the investigators to make a list of the stolen items and accurately estimate their value, as the contents of the boxes were known only to the clients of the vault themselves, who were not always able to accurately estimate the value of the missing items, and sometimes they did not want to. Some of them were not the most honest people on earth either, you know.

The vault had been looted for two days. And only on Tuesday, April 7, the employees came to work and found that while they were resting, someone had completely emptied their vault. The incident was instantly recognized and reported by the media. Headlines proclaimed it to be the biggest theft of the century - the damage could be as much as £200 million! The police were eager to get to work and very soon they were on the trail of the robbers. No matter how hard they tried to cover their tracks, they failed. The first clue was Collins' white van, which had been seen many times on the cameras in front of the vault shortly before the robbery. A few days later, the police were already keeping surveillance on some of the robbers. The old timers were unaware of this, and a month after the successful heist, they finally met at the home of Terry Perkins' niece to dispose of some of the loot and discuss future plans. That's when the police caught up with them, and the whole gang was brought to trial, except for the mysterious Basil, who continued to hide. We can state the following - the intruders were quite brilliantly prepared for the case, but made some unfortunate mistakes due to their own technological backwardness. It was not only the familiar van that was a puncture, but also, for example, the fact that they did not care about digital security at all and quietly discussed the details of the robbery in messengers. In addition, they were in a hurry to meet, they should have separated for a few months and kept a low profile.

Five of the perpetrators - Reeder, Perkins, Jones, Lincoln and Collins - were given seven years each, and the others were given lesser sentences. Hugh Doyle was let off with a suspended sentence. He was very grateful for this and shook hands with the jury for a long time. At the same time, much of the loot has not been found so far - the bandits did not want to say where the booty is hidden. Under English law, the criminals could get out after serving half of the term, but the court did not intend to let them go for nothing, and in 2018 a new decision was made in respect of the gang leaders - if they do not return the rest of the loot, they will extend their imprisonment for another seven years. None of them surrendered the loot to justice. That didn't stop the gang's leader, 79-year-old Brian Reeder, from walking free that same year, 2018. The court did not send him to jail again because of his health condition: he already had dementia, in addition to a history of prostate cancer and several strokes. John Collins served 3.5 years and was released, but in 2019 the court ordered him back behind bars for not returning the loot. He got seven years again. Still behind bars is Danny Jones, as he was given a new sentence of three years in 2018 for robbing a jewelry store. Terry Perkins never saw freedom - he died at the age of 69 in London's Belmarsh Prison in February 2018.

It took the longest to catch one Basil. He'd been in hiding for three years. It was very difficult to trace him - he paid no taxes, did not ask for any benefits from the state and did not use a bank account, paying cash everywhere. He didn't even have a cell phone. Unlike his older accomplices, he was good at digital security, but in the end it didn't help, and he was arrested. It turned out to be Michael Seed. He was only 49 years old at the time of the robbery. He was the son of a physics professor at Cambridge and had studied physics and electronics at the University of Nottingham. During his student days he got hooked on illegal substances and was convicted of distributing them back in 1984. In later years he worked as a security alarm technician (remember how easily it was disconnected during the robbery) and also repaired various appliances. He eventually got 10 years for the Hatton Garden robbery.

That's the story. That's the story of old men!