HATTON GARDEN HEIST MASTERMIND BRIAN READER IS DEAD AGED 84
The mastermind of the Hatton Garden heist Brian 'The Guvnor' Reader has died, aged 84.
The gangster made more than £200 million from a string of raids including the Brink's-Mat robbery in 1983.
It is thought his family had tried to keep his death a secret, reported The Sun, but a death certificate showed he had died in September 2023 after battling colon and prostate cancer.
He was the ringleader of one of the most famous raids in British history when £14million worth of jewellery was snatched in Hatton Garden in 2015.
He was jailed for six years and three months after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit burglary.
Reader was released halfway through his sentence in 2018 following a series of health battles.
In 2016 Reader was moved from Belmarsh Prison to an intensive care unit at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, in Woolwich, south east London.
Four years later a judge ruled he was too unwell and would not have to return to prison for failing to pay back his £6.6million.
Reader had handed over just 6 percent of his multi-million pound cut of the £13.7million raid despite a confiscation order.
The crook, along with fellow raid ringleaders John 'Kenny' Collins, Daniel Jones, and Terry Perkins, who died in prison aged 69, were slapped with one of the biggest confiscation orders in Scotland Yard's history.
The burglars worked through the four-day weekend of the Easter and Passover Bank Holiday, when many of the nearby businesses were closed.
It was reported that the burglars had entered the premises through a lift shaft, then drilled through the 50cm thick vault walls with a Hilti power drill.
The theft was so significant that the investigation was assigned to the Flying Squad, a branch of the MPS' Specialist, Organised and Economic Crime Command.
It is the subject of three feature films including 2018's King of Thieves, starring Michael Caine, Ray Winstone, and Michael Gambon.
Reader was the oldest member of the Hatton Garden heist gang, and also stood trial along with Kenneth Noye for the murder of undercover police officer Detective Constable John Fordham, 45, in 1985. Both Reader and Noye were acquitted.
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