IT was like something out of Ocean's Eleven.
A criminal gang used a supercharged JCB digger to smash through security barriers at Britain’s top tourist attraction in broad daylight to steal a £350million diamond - before making their getaway in a speed boat.
But this audacious plan wasn’t a scene from a Hollywood heist movie. It was the daring real-life raid carried out on the Millennium Dome by a motley crew of local robbers.
And if their shocking heist on November 7, 2000 hadn’t been thwarted by police, it would have been one of the biggest robberies in history.
Now former armed robber Noel ‘Razor’ Smith reveals how one of the ringleaders of the raid, Bill Cockram, told him in prison he believed the botched Millennium Dome heist was “cursed” after two of the perps died.
Noel, 61, tells The Sun: “He told me, ‘There's a curse on this job like Brink's-Mat, you know. We're all gonna die off'.”
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Noel features in a new Discovery+ true crime documentary series about the most daring and audacious robberies in the world, called Inside The Heist.
The Millennium Dome in Greenwich, South East London opened to the public in 2000.
Back then that area of the capital area was, according to Noel, a breeding ground for criminals.
He claims the wasteland the Dome was built on was a popular "dumping ground" for weapons and even murder victims.
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"It was such a dump up there. It really was," he recalls.
"A lot of stuff that people didn't want found would be put there because nobody ever went out there. It was an ideal place to put it.
"A lot of people did use it as a dumping ground. So there'll be bodies there. The 02 is built on top of bodies.”
'Dangling a carrot'
Noel says the decision to put the £789million project there caused much bemusement within the South London underworld.
And he jokes that holding the De Beers diamond exhibition - featuring the pear-shaped, 203 carat Millennium Star described by experts as "one of the world's most beautiful diamonds" - at the Dome was like "dangling a carrot" in front of London's criminal elite to see who was bold enough to steal it.
Noel recalls: “They had all the criminals salivating. It was like, 'This is our manor and then they're putting this thing here…’ It was like poking a tiger with a stick.
"I remember a mate saying to me, 'That will get done, and it will get done good'."
The documentary shows CCTV footage of robbers Ray Betson, Robert Adams, Bill Cockram and Aldo Ciarrocchi smashing into the Dome on a turbo charged JCB modified by scrap metal welder Lee Wenham.
They were armed with a nail-gun, hammer and smoke bombs.
Market trader Betson stayed in the JCB while Ciarrocchi threw smoke grenades to act as a distraction.
Builder Bill and plasterer Robert Adams raced to the diamond exhibit and took just 27 seconds to smash into the diamond’s "impenetrable" top security display.
Foiled getaway
Meanwhile Kevin Meredith was waiting in a nearby speedboat, bought by Terry Millman, who cheekily used the alias Mr T Diamond, for a planned James Bond-style escape along the River Thames.
Noel said: "It was one of those jobs that was iconic. It's an Ocean's Eleven-type job.
“If they got away with this it would have been the perfect job.”
But their plan was foiled by the Metropolitan Police Service's Flying Squad after they got a tip-off.
They were put under surveillance for five months in a secret operation - codenamed Magician - to catch them red-handed.
The gems were also replaced with replicas and cops installed a false wall around the exhibit where armed officers lay in wait before ambushing them.
Noel said: “It was an amazing, intricate plan. When you're planning jobs like that, the last thing you do is let information slip. They were quite unlucky that they were traced.”
'Cursed'
In February 2002, the gang - dubbed the Diamond Geezers - were sentenced for a total of 71 years for the heist, which a judge described as the biggest in English legal history.
Ray Betson and Bill Cockram were jailed for 18 years each - both later reduced to 15 years on appeal - Aldo Ciarrocchi and Bob Adams were given 15 years, while Lee Wenham was jailed for nine years.
Speedboat pilot Kevin Meredith was jailed for five years for conspiracy to steal, despite his coercion claim.
Four months before his trial was due to begin, Terry Millman died from stomach cancer. Following the trial, Adams died in prison.
Career criminal Noel, who was involved in 200 armed robberies and spent nearly 33 years behind bars, played no part in the De Beers raid - which inspired the infamous Sun headline I'm Only Here for De Beers.
Now living in Fareham, Hants, he has 58 criminal convictions for everything from attempted theft to armed robbery and escaping prison.
'Respect'
After meeting Cockram and Ciarrocchi in prison, he admits he respected the gang.
Noel explains: “I've been a robber all my life, and you always choose the easy option, which is why you don't get so many of these jobs going on because they need meticulous planning.
“Most robbers are quite lazy like me. I would have rather gone out and robbed a security man on the street, you get your quick money that way.
“This job involved stealing a diamond. It wasn’t cash. So unless you've got a buyer for that diamond straight away, you're going to be stuck with that lump of rock until you do and it's going to be hot.
“The only thing that's never come out was who was going to buy it.”
But Noel reveals that as well as discussing his fears about the so-called curse, Cockram hinted in prison there was a buyer lined up.
He recalls: “He was a bit cagey, but he said, ‘Let's just say it was going'.
"Me and Bill were quite close. He’s a lovely guy. He’s the sort of fella who if you pass them in your supermarket, you wouldn't even remark. He doesn't look like a criminal. He looks like a builder.
“There's no malice in Bill. There was no malice in none of them, really.
“Not like most of today's criminals who are ‘get rich quick’ and be as violent as you can.
Bill told me, ‘There's a curse on this job like Brink's-Mat, you know. We're all gonna die off'
Noel Smith“Crime in this country has kind of dumbed down if you like. You've got guys driving through the front of clothes shops to take designer handbags or something or stabbing someone in the neck in a sweet shop for the contents of the till.
“There's no finesse, there's no planning.”
Noel decided to turn his back on crime after his 19-year-old son Joe killed himself in 1998 and he wasn’t allowed to go to the funeral because he says he was deemed “too dangerous”.
He recalls: “For the first time in my life, I sat down and I thought to myself, ‘Why am I doing this? You know, I can't even be there for my kids'.”
Noel taught himself to read and write in prison before gaining a diploma in journalism and an A-Level in law.
He is now a reformed character and best-selling author - publishing his autobiography A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun about his life of crime and rehabilitation in 2004 and A Rusty Gun: Facing Up To a Life of Crime in 2010.
He said: “The robberies that are portrayed on some of these documentaries, people think it's quite glamorous.
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“But believe me, it's not when you're lying in a cell, with two broken ribs, covered in your own vomit, with another 12 years to serve prison. It kind of loses its lustre."
Inside the Heist is available to watch on Discovery+ now.
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