Heist: the true story of the world’s biggest cash robbery. Howard Sounes. 2009.

The world’s biggest cash robbery took place in Tonbridge, Kent. In February 2006, when an armed gang burst into a high-security depot and stole £53 million. For the first time since that famous raid the full story can be told.

Having become close to the Tonbridge gang and the police during three years of research, Sounes relates a classic crime caper in irresistible, almost forensic detail. The perpetrators were no master criminals. The heist was plotted in suburban living rooms by a gang of misfits including a used car dealer and a thick-as-two-planks roofer. We follow the robbers as they put a Securities cash depot under surveillance, get a man on the inside, use unsuspecting girlfriends to run errands, and persuade a hairdresser to make disguises so they can kidnap the manager. Their plan was home-made, audacious and ruthless and it worked like a dream. 

After the robbery comes the exciting, sometimes comical story of he getaway. The gang make stupid blunders. Money is found and arrests are made, followed by trial and convictions. But key characters slip out of the country, and millions are still missing.