Millennium Dome Raid - Operation Magician

Operation Magician

In the summer of 2000, the flying squad became aware of a major armed robbery plot after a tip off was received. The location of this robbery was unclear but the identities of some of the robbers were known to the police. The police spent a number of months developing intelligence on the plot and set up an operation which they codenamed Operation Magician. During the intelligence gathering the location of the robbery was found to be The Millennium Dome in Greenwich. In February 1999 armed men tried to pull off a £10 million raid on a security van in Nine Elms, South London. The gun men had stopped the security lorry by blocking off both ends of Nine Elms Lane. They had planned to use their own lorry which was carrying Christmas trees as a battering ram. This lorry had a huge metal spike welded into the chassis and it was covered by the foliage. The gang planned to split the security lorry's rear doors with the ram. The gangs plan failed when a motorist who was late for work removed the keys from the ignition of the unattended Christmas tree van. The robbers, left with no choice, made their escape in an inflatable speedboat. Detective Superintendent John Shatford stated that this attempted robbery bought to his attention a gang out there which was capable of carrying out a robbery with this level of planning. Fifteen months after this attempted robbery, there was another case where a gang tried to pull off another robbery using similar techniques. This unsuccessful attack provided the police with important clues and led the police to track some of the vehicles which were used in the raid to two isolated farms in rural Kent; these properties were then put under 24-hour surveillance. After this unsuccessful robbery the police received a tip-off about the Dome raid from an informer. At a meeting between detectives to discuss the Nine Elms Lane attempted robbery and the information that the informer had provided about the Dome raid, one detective who had recently visited the dome quipped, "Maybe they are after the Millennium jewels?". It was this comment that lead to the investigation into the raid to begin.