The Diamond Heist: true crime gets the Guy Richie treatment

Say what you like about the criminal classes, they don’t lack ambition, or audacity.

Nor does director Guy Ritchie, whose compelling new true crime documentary, The Diamond Heist, brings to life superbly an extraordinary attempt by a criminal gang to steal one of the most expensive gems in the world from the Millennium Dome in 2000.

Extraordinary, yes, but in plain sight of the Met Police’s famous Flying Squad, who were keeping an eagle on the heist planning right from the outset. So begins three riveting episodes of ‘cat and mouse’ antics between the cops and would-be robbers.

“They were trying to pull off the greatest robbery in world history and we needed to catch them in the act,” said The Flying Squad’s boss John Swinfield, who led the delicate surveillance operation.

The glittering gem, some 200 carats, was owned by De Beers.

Tom Thorn, its Head of Security, was also in on the sting.

“I was very excited that these bad men were going to be nabbed, as it were, on the job,” he enthused.

In fact, the only people who weren’t in on it were the daring thieves themselves. But as we discover in this feature documentary nothing is straightforward, and there are many twists and turns – and laughs.

It was almost inevitable that the Millennium Diamond Heist would get the Hollywood treatment – even as a documentary film. The only mystery was why it took so long to do it. Perhaps it only needed gangster specialist Guy Ritchie (Layer Cake, Lock Stock… and The Gentlemen) to enter the fray as an executive producer.

While it is a true crime doc, the cops and robbers are also dramatised throughout together with Ritchie’s trademark quick cuts and dark humour.

Expect surprises right up until the very last minute.

This is a gangster tale with all the typical ingredients. There’s a tightly-knit gang of thieves, the prospect of a massive pay day, a charismatic team leader (Lee Wenham) up against a wiley cop (Swinburn, or “Swini”), all culminating in a bold escape plan, involving a speed boat on the Thames. Very James Bond.

The police even acknowledged the audacity of the heist. Said Swinburn: “You wouldn’t believe it if it were in the movies, but it’s true.”

The story is told through the recollections of Swinburn and convicted criminal Lee Wenham, one of the masterminds. Wenham, who has real swagger, was born into a family of gypsy travellers, and reveals how he followed his father into a life of crime.

Lee’s first proper crime, he tells the film, was stealing a JCB, ironically the same key piece of kit used on the day of the heist. When Lee was looking for a way to make an entrance into the Dome, his mind turned to the JCB: “They’re like a tank,” he said.

So he went and stole one. Again.

Wenham made several recces to the Dome, one with his two daughters in tow, who were largely kept in the dark about dad’s escapades.

“We never asked what he did for a living,” said Beth, his oldest daughter.

The doc begins with Lee Wenham looking at pictures of the famous Dome. He explains:

“Seeing the Dome brings back a lot of memories. It was a really wild time in my life.” Lee adds: “I’ve never spoken about what happened.”

And he does talk completely frankly about the entire escapade.

“I wanted to do something really big,” he explained, after another big robbery had gone wrong. Only four months before the Dome robbery, a security van heist would have netted £9 million for Lee and his gang only for it to be foiled by the police. Lee admitted: 

“I was completely gutted. I wanted to do a job that would give me respect and set me up for life.”

So he and crime associate Ray Betson settled on the theft of the Millennium diamond and began to put together a gang.

Wenham was like Michael Caine assembling his team for The Italian Job. There was Kevin (The Boatmen) for the speedy Thames getaway, Bob (The Builder) to crack the safe, Bill (The Muscle – “if it all goes wrong”), Aldo (The Technician) and Terry (The Experience), someone who’s done it all before.

There were other links to fictional gangsters, too.

Carol Brocklesby, who tailed Wenham, was from Police Surveillance (SO11) and tells the film: “Ray Betson [said to be the boss] reminded me of Tony Soprano, someone not to be messed with. He was a guy in control.”

But why do it in broad daylight? Lee revealed his thinking.

“The best time to go in is when the door is open,” he said, with a grin.

On the day of the heist, not everything went right for the robbers, oblivious to the Flying Squad lying in wait.

In the closing minutes of the documentary, a philosophical Lee Wenham returns to the scene of the crime at the Dome, “I thought there would have been a blue plaque or something, but there was nothing!

“You play with fire, you get burned – and I got burnt!”