Hatton Garden $300 Million Jewel Heist: Who Should Play the Mastermind in the Film?

It was the perfect heist. Whether or not it becomes the perfect crime depends on if the criminals get away with it.

Sometime over the long Easter weekend, an unknown number of criminals broke into the offices above the Hatton Garden Safety Deposit Box Company. They cut through the roof to gain access to Hatton Garden offices, rappelled down an elevator shaft to the basement, disabled a state-of-the-art security system, stole the hard drive of the CCTV system, cut through an 18-inch thick metal wall, and, over the four-day Easter holiday weekend, leisurely went about the business of gathering up an unknown amount of jewelry and valuables by drilling into at least 70 of the safe deposit boxes.

The estimate of $300 million (200 million pounds) is pretty much a wild guess. Hatton Garden is located smack in the middle of London’s diamond district and all sorts of people had accounts with the firm at the time of the heist. People trying to hide assets for one reason or another may have had a box, and they would not be likely or eager to declare what was in it. Most of the customers were small, independent firms who couldn’t afford to buy a safe. But there were several firms whose losses will be in the millions.

The Telegraph:

Local jewellers said the victims would be small, independent business and workshop owners who used the boxes to store their stock overnight and who did not have their own safes.

Many admitted they were not insured and said the prospect of losing tens of thousands of pounds worth of valuable goods made them “feel sick” as they waited for the police to confirm whose boxes had been emptied.

Michael Miller, a jeweller from Knightsbridge, London, faces the prospect of losing up to £50,000 as the contents of his safety box were not insured. But he said some boxes would be worth several million pounds.

“I have a collection of watches I was going to give my son and that is irreplaceable,” he said. “I bought an IWC GST Aquatimer on the day my son was born and I was going to give it to him when he turns 18. They don’t make them anymore.”

Norman Bean, 68, said: “A friend had a half-cut aqua diamond worth £500,000. He’s terrified it has gone. I have £35,000 of stuff including a pear-shaped diamond ring.”

The gang was almost caught when an alarm went off over the weekend. But the security guard on duty had a rather novel reason why he didn’t investigate:

Mr Bean said he had spoken to the security guard who heard the alarm going off.

“He went downstairs, looked through the door, through the windows and couldn’t see anything and came out again, that was it,” he added. “I said, ‘Well why didn’t you open up and have a look in?’ He told me he doesn’t get paid enough.”

I daresay the security guard isn’t being paid anything now.

With detailed knowledge of the security system and CCTV set-up, authorities believe the heist was an inside job. Given the complexity of the crime, there may have been a couple of insiders.

This is a movie that scripts itself. As for casting, how about Clive Owen as the mastermind? Need someone older? Michael Caine would be perfect. Or, if we want to be politically correct, make the mastermind a woman. Scarlett Johansson would fit the bill nicely.

Eric Bana could be the leader of the crooks who performed the heist. Russell Crowe could play one of the crooks who looks to double cross the rest of gang (can’t have a heist movie without a double cross).

And how about Johnny Depp playing the lead detective who finally catches up with the crooks?

As audacious and daring as this robbery was, you would hope they catch the criminals responsible. Still, in the long and storied history of crime in England, the Hatton Garden heist will go down as one of the most spectacular.