A heist is atheft of cash or valuable objects such as artworks, jewellery or bullion. This can take the form of either aburglary or arobbery, the difference inEnglish and Welsh law being that a robbery uses force (which means that some of the heists commonly known as robberies were actually burglaries).[2][3] In order to be listed here, each heist which took place in the United Kingdom is required to have taken a total sum of £1 million or more in cash or goods at contemporary rates. The largest heist was £291.9 million (equivalent to £840 million in 2023)[4] taken in theCity bonds robbery, althoughCharles Darwin's notebooks (announced as having been most likely stolen in 2020) were never valued. The largest cash robbery was theSecuritas depot robbery.
The heists vary in location and form. Railway trains were plundered in theGreat Gold Robbery and theGreat Train Robbery and in 1935 there was a robbery at theCroydon Aerodrome. Exhibition spaces such as theAshmolean Museum, theChrist Church Picture Gallery, theHarley Gallery, theNational Gallery and theWhitworth Art Gallery, and stately homes such asBlenheim Palace,Drumlanrig Castle,Ramsbury Manor andWaddesdon Manor have suffered losses.Graff jewellery shops in London have been attacked several times, alongside other shops inBond Street andHatton Garden. Banks, secure warehouses and vaults were targeted in the cases of theBrink's-Mat robbery, theHatton Garden safe deposit burglary, theKnightsbridge Security Deposit robbery and theNorthern Bank robbery. Regarding artworks, thePortrait of Jacob de Gheyn III byRembrandt has been stolen a total of four times. Other paintings subject to theft include works byCézanne,Goya andHenry Moore. The perpetrators range from individuals such asKempton Bunton to syndicates like thePink Panthers.
The largest UK heist on record in terms of the amount stolen was the 1990City bonds robbery, when a courier carrying 301bearer bonds worth £291.9 million (equivalent to £840 million in 2023)[4] was robbed on a smallCity of London street. All but two of the certificates were subsequently recovered, with the heist revealing the global nature of organised crime networks and directly leading to two murders.[5][6]
TheBaker Street robbery was an audacious heist in 1971 which netted the criminals an estimated £3 million (equivalent to £54 million in 2023). They tunnelled into a vault below aLloyds Bank branch from a shop two doors down the road. It was organised by a syndicate of five people and whilst there were three arrests, only one of the ringleaders was caught.[7] TheHatton Garden safe deposit burglary of April 2015 shared some similarities with the Baker Street robbery.[7] Five members of the gang were quickly arrested, yet a sixth man known only as "Basil" remained free. He was caught in 2018, when the police raided his flat and found gold and jewellery worth £143,000.[8] The same vault had been robbed of an estimated £1.5 million by a lone thief in 2003.[9]
It later transpired that Brian Reader was the mastermind of both the Baker Street and the 2015 Hatton Garden heists. He was 76 at the time of the latter.[7] Reader had also been involved in processing the gold bullion stolen in theBrink's-Mat robbery of 1983, for which he served eight years in prison.[10] Terry Perkins was another member of the gang and had previously been convicted for his part in the 1983 Security Express robbery, being sentenced to 22 years. He absconded fromHM Prison Spring Hill and was on the run for 17 years before being caught again following the Hatton Garden burglary.[11] Perkins died inHM Prison Belmarsh in 2018, aged 69.[12] Perkins and Danny Jones (also convicted for the Hatton Garden robbery) were both linked to a previous heist at the Chatila jewellers inOld Bond Street, in 2010.[13] The network of criminals termed thePink Panthers has been linked to several robberies of theGraff jewellery shops in London.[14]The Johnson Gang robbed many stately homes, includingRamsbury Manor, then the home ofHarry Hyams, where they plundered goods worth approximately £30 million andWaddesdon Manor, from where they took snuffboxes worth £5 million.[15]
Another large heist was theKnightsbridge Security Deposit robbery in 1986, which took at least £40 million (equivalent to £148 million in 2023). An Italian man later received a 22-year prison sentence for planning the venture with the help of an insider.[16] The gang which carried out theSecuritas depot robbery in 2006 first impersonated police officers in order to take the manager and his family hostage, then stole £53 million (equivalent to £97 million in 2023). They were forced to leave another £153 million behind for lack of space in the getaway vehicle. Five men were later convicted for the crime and given minimum jail sentences of between ten and fifteen years.[16] This was the UK's largest cash robbery.[17]
Northern Ireland's biggest heist took place in 2004. During theNorthern Bank robbery in Belfast, two employees and their families were taken hostage on Sunday 19 December and the following evening a van drove away with £26.5 million in assorted bank notes.Bertie Ahern (the IrishTaoiseach) andTony Blair (thePrime Minister of the United Kingdom) jointly accused theProvisional Irish Republican Army of planning it but nobody has ever been held directly responsible.[18][19] Likewise, no-one responsible for the 1952Eastcastle Street robbery was ever apprehended, although gangsterBilly Hill confessed he had organised it in his memoirs.[20]
Regarding artworks, thePortrait of Jacob de Gheyn III byRembrandt is held byDulwich Picture Gallery and has been stolen a total of four times.[21][22] The small painting, which is 12 by 10 inches (30 by 25 cm), was first stolen from the museum in 1967 along with 13 other works; they were all found within a week. It was next taken in 1973 by a thief who jumped on a bicycle to make his getaway and was caught within minutes. In 1981, three men took the painting and it was later retrieved from a taxi. The last theft occurred in 1983, when thieves broke into the gallery using ladders; the painting was discovered three years later at a railway station in Münster, Germany.[23]
ThePortrait of the Duke of Wellington byGoya was stolen in 1961 from theNational Gallery in London. Four years later,Kempton Bunton returned the painting and later gave himself up to the police, although it was revealed long after his death that it was actually his son who had taken the artwork.[24] Other stolen artworks includeCézanne'sView of Auvers-sur-Oise (not recovered) andGainsborough'sPortrait of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (recovered).[25][26] The artist cast of the sculptureReclining Figure 1969–70 byHenry Moore was stolen in 2005 and it is most likely to have been sold as scrap metal.[27]America was a golden toilet made as an artwork byMaurizio Cattelan.[28] When it was stolen in 2019, it had been plumbed in to the water mains atBlenheim Palace, where it was being exhibited. Cattelan said the thieves were "great performers".[28]
| Year | Name | Location | Original value | Contemporary value[a] |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1855 | Great Gold Robbery | Between London and Folkestone | £0.012 million (£12,000)[30] | £1.42 million |
| 1876 | Theft of thePortrait of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire | Thomas Agnew & Sons, Mayfair, London | £0.01 million (£10,605)[26] | £1.26 million |
| 1881 | Hatton Garden Post Office robbery | Hatton Garden, London | £0.08 million (£80,000)[31] | £10.2 million |
| 1907 | Theft of theIrish Crown Jewels, regalia of theOrder of St Patrick and other jewels | Dublin Castle, Dublin[b] | £0.033 million (£32,550)[32][33][34][35] | £4.3 million |
| 1913 | Great Pearl Robbery | Hatton Garden, London | £0.15 million (£150,000)[36] | £18.6 million |
| 1935 | Croydon Aerodrome robbery | Croydon Airport, Surrey | £0.021 million (£21,000)[37] | £1.84 million |
| 1952 | Eastcastle Street robbery | Eastcastle Street, London | £0.287 million (£287,000)[20] | £10.4 million |
| 1954 | KLM bullion heist | Holborn, London | £0.04 million (£40,500)[38] | £1.6 million |
| 1961 | Theft of thePortrait of the Duke of Wellington | National Gallery, London | £0.14 million (£140,000)[24] | £3.94 million |
| 1963 | Great Train Robbery | Mentmore, Buckinghamshire | £2.6 million[16] | £68.8 million |
| 1967, 1973, 1981, 1983 | Theft of thePortrait of Jacob de Gheyn III | Dulwich Picture Gallery, London | £6.2 million valuation in 2011[39] | £9.5 million |
| 1970 | Barclays Bank robbery, Ilford | Ilford, London | £0.237 million (£237,000)[40] | £4.6 million |
| 1971 | Baker Street robbery | Baker Street, London | £3 million[41] | £53.6 million |
| 1972 | Barclays Bank robbery, Wembley | Wembley, London | £0.138 million (£138,000)[40] | £2.3 million |
| 1975 | Bank of America robbery, Mayfair | Mayfair, London | £8 million[42] | £84.8 million |
| 1980 | A13 bullion heist | A13, east London | £3.4 million[7] | £18.4 million |
| 1980 | Marlborough diamond robbery | Sloane Street, London | £1.5 million[43] | £8.1 million |
| 1983 | Brink's-Mat robbery | Heathrow International Trading Estate,Heathrow Airport, London | £26 million[16] | £110.8 million |
| 1983 | Security Express heist | Shoreditch, London | £6 million[2] | £25.6 million |
| 1987 | Knightsbridge Security Deposit robbery | Knightsbridge, London | £40 million[16] | £148 million |
| 1988–1992 | Loughton incinerator thefts | Loughton, Essex | £0.6 million[44] | £1.6 million |
| 1990 | City bonds robbery | Nicholas Lane, City of London | £291.9 million[5] | £838 million |
| 1993 | Graff workshop robbery | Hatton Garden workshop, London | £7 million[45] | £18 million |
| 1995 | Midland Bank Clearing Centre heist | Salford, Manchester | £6.6 million[2] | £16 million |
| 2000 | Theft ofView of Auvers-sur-Oise | Ashmolean Museum, Oxford | £3 million[25] | £6.4 million |
| 2000–2001 | Theft ofCharles Darwin's notebooks | Cambridge University Library | "£ millions"[46] | "£ millions"[46] |
| 2003 | Hatton Garden safe deposit theft | Hatton Garden, London | £1.5 million[9] | £3 million |
| 2003 | Graff robbery 2003 | New Bond Street, London | £23 million[14] | £45.9 million |
| 2003 | Theft ofBuccleuch Madonna | Drumlanrig Castle,Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland | £25 million[1] | £49.9 million |
| 2003 | Waddesdon Manor heist | Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire | £5 million[15] | £10 million |
| 2003 | Whitworth Art Gallery heist | Manchester | £4 million[47] | £8 million |
| 2004 | Gallaher Group cigarette robbery | Belfast | £2 million[48] | £3.9 million |
| 2004 | Northern Bank robbery | Belfast | £26.5 million[49] | £51.4 million |
| 2005 | Graff robbery 2005 | Sloane Street, London | £2 million[14] | £3.8 million |
| 2005 | Theft ofReclining Figure 1969–70 | Perry Green, Hertfordshire | £3 million[27] | £5.7 million |
| 2006 | Ramsbury Manor heist | Ramsbury, Wiltshire | £30 million[15] | £54.8 million |
| 2006 | Securitas depot robbery | Tonbridge, Kent | £53 million[50] | £96.9 million |
| 2007 | Graff robbery 2007 | Sloane Street, London | £10 million[14] | £17.5 million |
| 2009 | Graff Diamonds robbery | New Bond Street, London | £40 million[16] | £67.8 million |
| 2010 | Chatila heist | Old Bond Street, London | £1 million[13] | £1.6 million |
| 2012 | Fitzwilliam Museum burglary | Trumpington Street, Cambridge | £57 million[51] | £85 million |
| 2015 | Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary | Hatton Garden, London | £14 million[2] | £19.6 million |
| 2017 | Feltham book heist | Feltham, London | £2.5 million[52] | £3.3 million |
| 2018 | Theft of thePortland Tiara | Harley Gallery, Nottinghamshire | £3.75 million[53] | £4.8 million |
| 2019 | Theft ofAmerica | Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire | £4.6 million[54] | £5.8 million |
| 2019 | Le Vian diamond robbery | Staines-upon-Thames, Surrey | £4.1 million[55] | £5.1 million |
| 2019 | Tamara Ecclestone jewellery theft | Kensington, London | £26 million[56] | £32.1 million |
| 2020 | Christ Church Picture Gallery heist | Christ Church,Oxford | £10 million[29] | £12.4 million |