Reader had generally managed to “walk” away until the Brinks-Mat Job, named for the high-security warehouse at Heathrow Airport hit by a group of bandits on November 26, 1983. Aiming to steal at most $4.4 million in cash, they instead stumbled on what today would be worth $145 million in gold bullion. Reader was merely a “soldier” on that job, moving the gold between a “fence” named Kenny Noye, who was supposed to arrange for it to be melted down, and dealers in Hatton Garden. But Reader had the bad luck to be present on the night Noye stabbed a police detective 11 times, after which Reader allegedly kicked the body. Although Reader and Noye were acquitted of murder (arguing self-defense), they were both later found guilty of conspiracy for handling stolen goods; for his part, Reader was sentenced to nine years.

Reader got out of prison in 1994, and it seemed he had put the life of crime behind him. But two decades later, suffering from prostate cancer and other ailments, he decided to get back into the game with his biggest caper yet. He studied books, such as The Diamond Underworld, and read diamond-industry magazines. He had diamond testers, scales, gauges, and other paraphernalia, all with an eye toward “one last hurrah,” Scotland Yard commander Peter Spindler, who oversaw the London police in investigating the heist, told me. “Someone for drilling, someone for electrics, someone as a lookout—all experienced villains who knew what they were doing.” He added that Reader was called “the Gov’nor,” the leader in British gangster parlance, who, possibly with associates, “set it up, enlisted the others, and called the job on, to the best of our understanding.”

Number two on the heist was Terry Perkins, 67, suffering from diabetes and other health issues, living out his sunset years in an anonymous little house in Enfield. He was a ghost to the neighbors, who had no idea he had once been a ringleader in the largest cash robbery in British history at that time: the 1983 Security Express Job, in which a gang raided a cash depot in East London for $9 million. Perkins was sentenced to 22 years but escaped from Spring Hill prison and went on the lam for 17 years, returning briefly in 2012, to serve out the last of his sentence. Because he and another robber had threatened a bank employee by dousing him with gasoline, then shaking a box of matches in his face, the judge had called Perkins an evil, ruthless man.

But others paint a different picture. He wasn’t a known criminal before the Security Express robbery, said retired detective Peter Wilton. “Usually wore a suit and had a portfolio of houses. The day of the 1983 robbery was his birthday, and his wife was surprised [he left] because he usually waited for his children to give him his presents.” Instead, Perkins left to become a habitual villain who kept “busy in the heavyweight division of commercial burglary,” a defense lawyer would argue, who added that Perkins commanded “subservience” from Danny Jones.

Jones, 60, viewed “his profession as a commercial burglar with some enthusiasm,” said the lawyer. Extraordinarily fit, with tremendous stamina, he was, according to a friend, a “Walter Mitty” type, who read palms and ran marathons when he wasn’t serving more than 20 years in prison. His passions were for the army and crime, and his rap sheet was filled with convictions. He lived in what was called an “opulent” house, where police later found magnification loupes, masks, a walkie-talkie, and the book Forensics for Dummies. “Eccentric to [such] extremes that everyone who knew Danny would say he was mad,” said Carl Wood, another member of the Hatton Garden team. “He would go to bed in his mother’s dressing gown with a fez on.” He would sleep in a sleeping bag in his bedroom on the floor, urinate into a bottle, and speak to his terrier, Rocket, as if the dog were human. At five P.M. most days Jones would lock himself away, to “study crime all the time … read books, watch films, and go on the Internet,” said Wood. For three years, Jones studied the price of gold and diamonds and searched online to learn about diamond-toothed core drills.

A police officer outside the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit building after the burglary. © Andy Rain/EPA/Corbis.

Carl Wood, 58, was sentenced to four years in prison in 2002, after being trapped in a police sting in a bugged Surrey hotel room. Wood and his accomplices, who included two corrupt London police detectives, were recorded planning to torture a money-launderer and put his body in a car crusher if he didn’t hand over the $850,000 he owed them. “I’ll just go smash, hit him straight in the head,” Wood was recorded saying as to what he planned to do when the man entered the room. Having no trade, and listing his employment as “retired,” Wood would testify he dabbled in “a bit of painting and decorating,” and described himself as “just a general dogsbody.” More than $12,000 in debt at the time of the Hatton Garden heist, he claimed to have been living on disability payments after being diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, an inflammation of the digestive tract. His genial appearance—V-necked sweater, distinguished beard, eyeglasses on a string—belied his criminal nature. He may have been selected for the Hatton Garden Job for his slim physique, which enabled him to crawl into tight spaces.