Eight men were jailed today for plotting to carry out what would have been one of Britain's biggest ever heists at Heathrow Airport last year.
Metropolitan Police issued CCTV footage of one of the robbers restrained during the raid at a Heathrow Airport warehouse on May 17 2004
The men planned to steal about £33 million pounds worth of cash, diamonds and gold bullion from a Swissport storage depot at the airport in May 2004.
The gang, armed with hockey sticks, an axe, a claw hammer and knives, rammed a white Transit van through the metal shutters of the warehouse on the airport's perimeter.
But once inside they were captured by more than 100 armed officers who had been lying in wait.
Six were held at the scene whilst a seventh hijacked a 17.5 tonne lorry, drove off from the airport and caused a number of accidents before crashing into a wall.
He was later arrested by police after being holed up in an apartment block. "Operation Cartwright prevented one of the biggest robberies ever attempted in the UK," Detective Superintendent Barry Philips of London's Metropolitan Police's flying squad.
"The gang had spent a lot of time planning this robbery but the Met's flying squad had demonstrated that they were able to stay one step ahead of them."
Seven of the men admitted conspiracy to rob Swissport while an eighth was convicted of the same offence at a trial earlier this year.
They were sentenced to a total of 67 years in jail on Friday at Kingston Crown Court. Britain's biggest successful robbery was a 1987 break-in at a safe deposit centre in London when £60 million pounds was stolen.
In 1983, £26 million pounds was taken in a raid on a Brinks-Mat vault at Heathrow.