Hatton gem raid crook told to sell his houses

AN ELDERLY mastermind of the multi-million pound Hatton Garden raid is to lose two houses he built in his garden.

Brian Reader, 80, was part of the ageing gang which drilled into a vault in London’s diamond district in 2015.

They escaped with gems worth up to £30million before being jailed, but much of their haul was never found – so the Proceeds of Crime Act is being used to claw back cash.

Reader has now been told by the Court of Appeal that his own £640,000 home, plus two luxury houses he built in the back gar

den, must be sold and the cash handed over, The Sun reported. The lifetime crook, also jailed for laundering money from the Brink’s Mat gold raid at Heathrow in 1983, applied for planning permission in 2010 and then built two executive homes in his garden in Dartford, Kent.

But he needed cash from the Hatton Garden job to finish the houses to sell to fund his retirement. His plans were ruined when he was jailed for six years three months, although he was released in July after serving just half the term.

Reader now faces seven years’ more jail unless he pays back the £6,644,951 authorities claim was his share of the loot.

‘Must pay back £7m of his loot’