The Brink's-Mat robbery
London, England, 1983
This case is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places and events in the game do not portray real people. The account below is a factual summary, based on public sources, of the case that served as inspiration.
Shortly after 6:40 am on November 26, 1983, six armed men entered the Brink's-Mat security company depot on the industrial estate next to Heathrow airport in London. They overpowered and tied up the guards, poured petrol over them and threatened to set them alight until they got the vault combination. The gang expected to find cash, but found about three tonnes of gold in nearly 6,800 bars, plus diamonds and traveller's cheques, worth 26 million pounds in total, then the biggest robbery in British history.
The robbers got in without breaking anything, with help from the inside. One of the depot's guards, who lived with the sister of one of the robbers, had given the gang a mould of the main door key and details of the security. Police soon grew suspicious of him and, according to accounts, he had arrived late for work that morning. In December 1983 he confessed and gave up his brother-in-law and another member of the gang.
Sources
In the game
Wax Key
London, Saturday, November 26, 1983, 9 am. On the industrial estate next to Heathrow airport, warehouse 12 of the Carrow cash-in-transit company still smells of petrol.
In December 1984, the two were sentenced to 25 years in prison, and the guard to six years. The gold was handed to a network of handlers, melted down and mixed with copper to disguise its origin before going back on the market. Dozens of people were arrested in the following years for laundering the money, but a good part of the gold was never recovered.
