Hatton Garden heist: Millions still missing 10 years after infamous bank vault robbery

The Hatton Garden heist became one of the most talked about crimes in modern British history . Six villains, who we dubbed Mr Ginger, Mr Strong, Mr Montana, The Gent, The Tall Man and The Old Man, were pictured removing wheelie bins packed with gold and jewels over the 2015 Easter weekend.

The "Diamond Wheezers" were all eventually jailed for the £14 million hole-in-the-wall burglary on the safety deposit vault in central London. But on the tenth anniversary of the crime, only £4.6 million worth of the stolen gear has been recovered, meaning £9.5 million is still missing.

A source close to the gang told the Daily this week: "If there is nearly £10m out there then it will be like Tutankhamun's treasure - cursed. They can't sell it. If you've got a secret, you keep it to yourself. I reckon that in fifty or a hundred years from now, some nerd with a metal detector will hit upon it. They had weeks to hide this stuff. But who knows how much was really stolen?"

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It was rumoured that some of the proceeds was smuggled abroad soon after the burglary. “The gang were made to look like idiots after they were arrested. But nothing could be further from the truth. One of them got £2million out of the country, through Holland to Spain, and he will be able to enjoy his retirement when it finally begins.”

with a combined age of 490 shuffled in accused of pulling off one the biggest raids of the century. The men - three of them pensioners and one appearing to be deaf - stood in the dock at Westminster magistrates court charged with burglary.

Wearing cardigans, tracksuits and jeans, they looked more like a group of friends on a golfing holiday than top-level criminals. But they had been involved in some of the biggest heists of the twentieth century.

Grey haired John Collins, 74, struggled to hear and had to be helped by a co-defendant. Billy "The Fish" Lincoln, then 60, was left out of the raid due to his hip replacement and bladder problems. The oldest, at 76, was Brian Reader, dubbed "the Master" by his colleagues.

On the first day of the heist he took a bus to Hatton Garden using a borrowed Freedom Pass. Reader was among the last of London's criminal aristocracy, having mixed with some of London's top crooks. But the gang were exposed as "analogue criminals in a digital age" after CCTV and telephone led to their downfall.

On the first night of the burglary, April 2, they entered the building, jammed the lift, climbed down the shaft to the basement, disabled the alarm and drilled three holes through half-a-metre thick concrete. After the ten-tonne jack they were using to topple metal shelving on the other side of the hole broke, the gang returned two nights later – without Reader – to complete the raid.

But six of them were caught the following month after Collins' distinctive car was spotted on CCTV by police. Reader, Perkins, Collins, Danny Jones, Carl Wood, then 58 and Lincoln, 60, were jailed for up to seven years each in March 2016 for conspiracy to commit burglary. Two of the leading raiders, nicknamed Dad's Army due to their advanced ages, have now died.

Ringleader Perkins, portrayed by Timothy Spall in an drama, had a heart attack while serving his sentence for the crime. Mastermind Reader, played by Michael Caine in one of several movies about the burglary, succumbed to cancer in 2023. The 83-year-old had been released early from jail due to illness.

Nicknamed "The Guvnor", Reader had been convicted over the Brink's-Mat robbery and escaped prosecution for his role in the Baker Street burglary. The youngest in the team was Michael Seed, then 54, dubbed 'Basil the Ghost'.

Seed was the technical brains behind the burglary, getting the gang into the Hatton Garden Safety Deposit vault, disabling the alarms and removing most of the CCTV. He was one of two raiders slim enough to be able to climb into the vault through the drilled hole to loot 73 safe deposit boxes.

Seed, who paid no taxes, claimed no benefits and rarely used a bank account, evaded capture for three years. Police finally raided his flat, in Islington, North London, which is about two miles from Hatton Garden. Seed, now 63, is the only member of the gang who remains in jail.

Collins was forced to sell his home in Hackney, east London, where the gang split up the loot, and handed over the cash to prosecutors. He is understood to be back with his ex-wife in a north London council flat.

Ringleader Danny Jones, 70, played by Ray Winstone and Phil Daniels in two films about the crime, led police to a stash of jewels hidden in a cemetery, declaring "that's all I had". He wrote to Sky News crime correspondent Martin Brunt in 2015 saying that he would take police to the location after admitting conspiracy to commit burglary.

Unknown to him officers had found jewels buried in the graveyard but he led them to a separate, smaller stash, claiming that was all there was. Prosecutors said he led police to the smaller haul hoping he would still have access to the larger stash. He was also secretly recorded by police talking to Perkins while driving around London after the raid.

Perkins said: "The biggest robbery in the f***ing , Dan, we was on." Jones replied: "And what a book you could write, f***ing hell."

A teetotal fitness movie on heist fanatic originally from Tottenham, North London, Jones has previous convictions including burglary, theft, robbery and handling stolen goods, which means he has spent much of his adult life in prison.

The lifelong Spurs fan is understood to be living outside London. The men were ordered to hand over sums ranging from £6,526,571 to £7,686,039 under one of the biggest ever proceeds of crime rulings.aqz

The Crown Prosecution Service said in 2018: "Much of the stolen property has not been returned."