Thieves use a bulldozer to steal diamonds - Millennium Dome Raid
The millennium diamond raid was an attempted robbery of the De Beers diamond exhibition at the Millennium Dome in London on November 7, 2000. The exhibition featured the Millennium Star, a flawless 203-carat gem worth £200 million, and other rare diamonds. A gang of seven men planned to ram-raid the exhibition with a bulldozer, smash the glass display with sledgehammers, and escape with the diamonds in a speedboat on the Thames River. However, the gang was unaware that they were under surveillance by the Metropolitan Police's Flying Squad, who had received a tip-off about their plot. The police had set up a covert operation codenamed Magician, which involved replacing the real diamonds with fakes, installing CCTV cameras and hidden microphones, and deploying armed officers inside and outside the dome. On the day of the raid, the police waited until the gang entered the dome and then arrested them without firing a shot. The raiders were later convicted of conspiracy to rob and sentenced to prison terms ranging from five to 18 years. The raid would have been one of the biggest robberies in history if it had succeeded.
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