In ‘The Last Job,’ cranky geezers go for the gold (and jewels)
Great Britain may never again see another holiday weekend like Easter 2015, when a group of elderly thieves pulled off the biggest burglary in the nation’s history. Their target was Hatton Garden
Safe Deposit Ltd., located in the heart of the jeweler-heavy district featured in such films as “Snatch” and “A Fish Called Wanda.” While its central London streets were practically deserted, these five men drilled through nearly 2 feet of concrete and ransacked the company’s basement vault — despite suffering from a host of geriatric maladies.
One man paused every so often to take his diabetes medicine. Another was forced to wake up the lookout man stationed across the street, who had nodded off during the crime.
These thieves made off with an estimated £14 to £21 million worth of precious goods, much of it in diamonds but also gold, gems, currency, jewelry, medals and other family heirlooms. To this day, only a fraction of the loot has been recovered.
But this was far from the perfect crime.
In fact, notes New York Times reporter Dan Bilefsky’s new book
“The Last Job,” the audacity required to design a heist of this scale was surpassed only by the ineptitude with which it was pulled off. Whatever lessons lie in “Forensics for Dummies,” a copy of which was found in one thief ’s home, they were almost completely lost on these aging blokes.
“While the plotting and planning of the Hatton Garden heist (was) masterful,” Bilefsky writes, “the execution was amateurish bordering on stupid, and the aftermath disastrous.”
Stationed in the Times’ London bureau at the time, Bilefsky covered the case from the beginning. “The
Last Job” combines old-age melodrama — a gang of geezers dead-set on proving they’ve still got what it takes — with an enticing overview of the post-World War II London underworld and a dash of classic Blake Edwards farce.
In fact, the media’s leading suspects in the early going (if not the cops’) was a group of Eastern European jewel thieves known as the Pink Panthers. The already high press attention shot through the roof when, weeks later, police shockingly arrested a group of old men. “Diamond Wheezers,” gasped one feverish tabloid. “Bad Grandpas,” crowed another.
To his credit, Bilefsky never buys into the “harmless geezers” narrative. Although their frequent whinging can be hilarious, the portrait he paints of these men is hardly sympathetic. He’s kinder toward the safe-deposit boxes’ owners, most of whom were diamond merchants from the neighborhood and other small-business owners. A fair number were Holocaust survivors; many lost their life savings.
In laying out the case, “The Last Job” also unspools the history of Hatton
Garden itself, a center of London’s diamond trade since Shakespearean times, and of Scotland Yard’s legendary Flying Squad, the elite team of robbery investigators known as the “Sweeney,” also the name of a 1970s cop show whose lead detective was fond of exclaiming, “Shut it!”
The Flying Squad had its hands full with this cranky bunch. The nucleus was the quartet of Brian Reader, Danny Jones, Kenny Collins and Terry Perkins, career criminals — and in some cases, doting grandfathers — who had all either served time for or were suspected in some of the biggest heists in recent British memory.
Although they managed to wield a 77-pound Hilti DD350 power drill (which retails for upwards of $4,500) to penetrate the vault, the burglars also made some boneheaded mistakes. They used one of their own cars while scouting the robbery and toasted their initial success in the same pubs they had patronized while planning the job.
Another was tripping an alarm, which, astoundingly, the police deemed not worth responding to. In short order, Scotland Yard atoned for this rather embarrassing slipup with a painstaking surveillance operation that began by identifying Collins’ license plate and concluded by nabbing the suspects as they attempted to spirit the loot to a secure location — just like in the movies.
Not surprisingly, the film industry began licking its chops the moment news of the burglary got out.
Bilefsky, who has since been transferred to the Times’ Montreal bureau, notes in his afterword that Hollywood optioned his original article about the heist within days. Incredibly, his ac
count is now fourth in line to the screen behind two feature-length films — both inspired by the same Vanity Fair article — and the four-hour miniseries that aired on Britain’s ITV in May.
For Americans, the most accessible of these is 2018’s “King of Thieves,” now streaming on Amazon Video. Despite an impressive cast featuring Michael Caine, Jim Broadbent and Michael Gambon, The Guardian was unconvinced: “There is one joke in ‘King of Thieves,’ wrote reviewer Simran Hans, “and it’s that the thieves are old.”
Luckily for Bilefsky, “The Last Job” is anything but a one-joke affair. This crackling true-crime caper will pair delightfully with a freshly fried platter of fish and chips.