London's Millennium Dome finally achieved world renown yesterday - though not as Prime Minister Blair had ever intended. In scenes evocative of James Bond's The World is not Enough, daring armed robbers sought to pull off the world's most spectacular robbery - only to find themselves foiled by London's real-life "Sweeney", Scotland Yard's elite Flying Squad - and their intended "priceless" haul of diamonds replaced by crystal dummies.
Shortly after the Dome opened at 9.30 a.m. yesterday the raiders tried to grab the De Beers millennium diamond collection, its centrepiece the 203-carat Millennium Star pear-shaped diamond, described as beautiful beyond compare.
The armed gang donned gas masks and detonated smoke bombs as they drove a JCB digger through the Dome gates before attempting to remove the heavily protected exhibits with hammers, sledgehammers and nail-guns. Unsuspecting children visiting the play zone had been mysteriously whisked off to watch Blackadder as the Yard's finest - some dressed as cleaners, their firearms stashed in bin bags - lay in wait.
Not a shot was fired in anger as the police - executing an operation "months in the planning" - arrested the vehicle's four passengers inside the Dome's money zone. Two others were arrested "in and around" the River Thames, where a powerboat waited to speed the robbers from the scene of the crime.
Kent Police confirmed its Serious Crime Unit subsequently arrested five more people in two raids on addresses in the villages of Collier Street and Horsmonden, West Kent.
Det Supt John Shatford, who led the police operation, said: "If they had got away with this it would have been the largest robbery in the world."
The De Beers collection, including also the 27.64 carat Heart of Eternity and 10 other vivid blue diamonds, is reputedly worth £350 million. Some experts have said the true value is "unquantifiable".
The real diamonds, lent by De Beers for display throughout the year, had been removed during the night after the police confirmed the attack was imminent. More than 100 officers had had been waiting during a five-week period embracing what the Dome chairman, Mr David James, confirmed had been around 24 "risk days". The intelligence-led police operation had been months in preparation following the theft of a number of documents from the Dome, including floor plans.
While the Dome would grab world-wide headlines because of the greatest-robbery-that-never-was, publicist Max Clifford said the real publicity winners would be the Metropolitan Police. . Any "supergrass" involved could net up to £100,000 for his story, not to mention the rights to the potential television drama, the book and the movie.