The UK's best-known robbery took place on 8, August, 1963, when over two million pounds was stolen from a night mail train 50km from London. It is a crime that has passed into English folklore and has been the subject of countless books and movies.
Some months before the raid, a gang of professional criminals had received a tip-off from a postal worker that large quantities of used banknotes would be on the train. Such a prize proved irresistible, and they planned a military-style operation to get the money which even the police thought was brilliantly planned.
Stopping the train in the middle of the night with a false red signal, they unloaded the money bags into trucks and drove to a remote farmhouse which they had bought six weeks earlier.
Here they shared out the loot, and the following day went their separate ways. But problems arose when a man they had paid to clean up the farmhouse cheated them and failed to show up. As a result, the gang's fingerprints were left at the farm.
Meanwhile, media attention put the police under intense pressure to make arrests. The robbers were all professional criminals, so they became prime suspects.
By Christmas, most of the gang had been caught, and two months later they were sentenced to over 300 years in prison. Many people were sympathetic to the robbers and thought the jail terms were too long. In the event none served more than 15 years while some managed to escape. Very little of the money has ever been recovered.
Pic: bullion Vault (CC BY)
On 6, November, 1983, six gunmen robbed a high-security warehouse near London airport in Britain's biggest ever armed robbery. Let into the building by an inside accomplice, they threatened to kill the guards if they didn't open the vaults.
Here, instead of the £3 million cash they were expecting, they stumbled upon £26 million worth of gold bars awaiting transit abroad. Hardly able to believe their good luck, they crammed the 3 tons of gold into their elderly van (designed to carry 900kg) and with its floor almost touching the ground, drove away.
When the story hit the news, the gold price increased and the loot gained another £1 million in value overnight. But the robbers had bitten off more than they could chew. They had no idea how to dispose of the bullion and had to get help from other criminals to turn the gold into cash.
Meanwhile, the police quickly narrowed down their list of suspects and found that one of them was the brother-in-law of a security guard at the warehouse. In 1984 two men were jailed for 25 years; the security guard got 6 years.
The rest of the gang were never caught, but arguments over the disposal of the bullion arose, and gangland shootings related to the robbery have continued to this day.
Much of the gold was melted down and turned into jewellery. But a third of the haul, worth £10m, has never been found.
Pic: Ptone805 (CC BY)
It was the biggest burglary in English legal history: £14 million in cash, jewels and valuables, stolen from a safe deposit facility in central London over the Easter weekend in 2015.
It soon became clear that the heist was the work of seven, mainly elderly, men - the oldest was 76 - suffering from medical conditions that included diabetes and a heart problem. But the 'Bad Grandpas' were veteran criminals with histories stretching back to the 1960s.
On the evening before the Easter holiday, they entered the building and abseiled down a lift shaft to the basement, at one point activating an alarm. Fortunately for them, the police failed to respond.
They then drilled a hole through the half-metre wall of the vault, only to find their way blocked by a huge metal cabinet weighing over a ton. Two of them gave up and went home, but the others drove off to find a power tool that could push the cabinet over and returned the next day to finish the job. They eventually left with the contents of 73 safe deposit boxes stuffed into dustbins.
But carelessness was their undoing, and they were picked up on CCTV. The police then bugged their cars and listened to them chatting about their plans to spend the money. All were subsequently arrested and jailed.
Of the money, only around £4 million has been recovered. Some of the robbers, who have now served their sentences, have been jailed a second time for refusing to reveal where it is hidden.
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