BRITAIN: Four men found guilty of plotting to carry out the robbery of the millennium by snatching diamonds worth £200 million from the Dome, in London, were yesterday jailed for between 15 and 18 years.
The raid on November 7th, 2000 was foiled by the biggest Flying Squad operation in history. More than 100 armed officers laid in wait as the gang ram-raided their way into the Thames-side tourist attraction on a JCB.
The raiders, armed with sledgehammers, a nail gun, ammonia and smoke grenades, were caught red- handed by armed police inches away from seizing jewels from the De Beers' diamond exhibition vault. Their ringleaders, Raymond Betson (40), from Chatham, Kent, and William Cockram (49), from Catford, south-east London, were each jailed for 18 years. The two other Dome raiders, Robert Adams (58), of no fixed address and Aldo Ciarrocchi (32), of Balaclava Road, Bermondsey, south east London, were sentenced to 15 years each.
Judge Michael Coombe said the gang had played "for very high stakes". "This was a very well planned and pre-meditated attempt to rob the diamonds' owners, De Beers, of what would have been the most gigantic sum in English or any other legal history," he said.
"It was a wicked plan. It was a professional plan and one which was carried out with the most minute attention to detail." The judge jailed a fifth man, Kevin Meredith (35), who was cleared of conspiracy to rob the Dome but convicted of conspiracy to steal, for five years. Meredith had been hired at the last moment to take the other four in a speedboat across the River Thames had the raid succeeded. But they ran straight into the police ambush. Officers were waiting for them after undertaking a massive undercover reconnaissance operation.
The Flying Squad believed that a major robbery was due to be carried out near a river - allowing the raiders to make their escape across water. They had set up surveillance on possible targets.
These included the Millennium Dome, although no-one seriously believed then that anyone would attempt a raid on such an apparently secure site. But on September 1st, 2000, the millennium diamonds were due to be moved from the Dome for a short period. Police thought if any robbery attempt was to be made it would be while they were out of their vault and in transit. They monitored the Dome and its precincts intensely that day. Nothing happened. But Betson and his old friend Cockram were spotted arriving at the Dome.
They had been of interest to the Flying Squad since 1996 and were strongly suspected of taking part in other major robberies. Betson had gone to the Dome at around 9 a.m. and Cockram arrived 50 minutes later.
Cockram had a video camera and went into the vault and started to film. They later went to nearby Surrey Quays before returning to the Dome again. A secret surveillance video showed them meeting a third member of the gang, Ciarrocchi, at Surrey Quays.
"You could not have a more conspiratorial group," said Mr Martin Heslop, QC, prosecuting. Adams - known as Bob the Builder - was brought in at almost the last minute. He sledgehammered the armoured glass protecting the diamonds. After his arrest he told police ruefully: "I was 12 inches from pay day.
"It would have been a blinding Christmas. I cannot believe how easily the glass went. I only hit it twice. Then that f***ing mob came in and jumped on us." To make doubly sure the gang could not succeed, the stones had already been substituted with fakes.
The real stones were exhibited in Tokyo that September. After the Flying Squad uncovered the plot, they were never returned to the Dome but replaced with dummies.
It is understood the fakes may now become an exhibit in Scotland Yard's Crime Museum. Police believe that if the real diamonds had been successfully stolen there was already a potential buyer.