The Millennium Dome raid was an attempted robbery of the Millennium Dome's diamond exhibition in Greenwich, South East London occurring on November 7, 2000. A local gang including Lee Wenham, Raymond Betson and William Cockram had planned to ram-raid the De Beers diamond exhibition which was being held in the dome at the time. The gang had then planned to escape via the Thames in a speedboat. The De Beers diamond exhibition had a number of jewels on display including the Millennium Star, a flawless 203.04 carats (40.61 g) gem with an estimated worth of £200 million and considered one of the most perfect gems in the world. Also on display were priceless blue diamonds. The attempted robbery was foiled by the Flying Squad of the Metropolitan Police Service, who already had the gang members under surveillance for their suspected roles in a number of unsuccessful armoured vehicle robberies. The operation to foil the robbery was the biggest operation undertaken in the flying squad's history and at trial the judge in the case made a special point of commending the way it was carried out.
Read more about Millennium Dome Raid: Operation Magician, Surveillance, Aborted Robbery Attempts, Day of Raid, Trial, Members of The Gang, Aftermath, In Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words millennium, dome and/or raid:
“The millennium will not come as soon as women vote, but it will not come until they do vote.”
—Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919)
“A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains
All that man is,
All mere complexities,
The fury and the mire of human veins.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“John Brown and Giuseppe Garibaldi were contemporaries not solely in the matter of time; their endeavors as liberators link their names where other likeness is absent; and the peaks of their careers were reached almost simultaneously: the Harper’s Ferry Raid occurred in 1859, the raid on Sicily in the following year. Both events, however differing in character, were equally quixotic.”
—John Cournos (1881–1956)