HAVE GEM COPS GOT MASTERMIND BASIL?
Russell Grow! Man is held for £200m safes heist
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POLICE think they have caught the ringleader of the £200million Hatton Garden raid.
The man – who has been dubbed Basil – was arrested by officers from the Met’s Flying Squad on Tuesday.
Six men aged between 59 and 77 were jailed in 2016 for the crime, said to have been Britain’s biggest burglary.
The group hatched the plan over secret meetings in a London pub. They then carried out the brazen theft on the long Easter weekend in 2015.
They drilled through the thick walls of the premises before breaking into 73 safe deposit boxes stuffed with gold and gems.
Police found items of loot stashed all over London – some buried in a remote graveyard.
But the raid’s mysterious mastermind, known only as “Basil”, escaped justice.
Police feared he had fled abroad with millions of pounds worth of property.
On Tuesday morning, detectives arrested a 57-year-old man in north London. They swooped on a house in Islington and seized “a number of items” from the address.
A Met Police spokesman said: “Detectives from the Flying Squad investigating the burglary at Hatton Garden Safety Deposit Ltd in April 2015 arrested a 57-year-old man on Tuesday, 27 March on suspicion of non-residential burglary.
“The man was arrested after a search warrant was carried out at an address in Islington at approximately 07:30hrs.
“A number of items were seized from the address.”
They added: “The man currently remains in custody in a north London
police station.”