It could've been one of the biggest robberies in history, but instead the tale of failed Millennium Dome Heist is being retold on our TV screens using never-before-seen photographic evidence and footage.
Cast your minds back to November 2000, when a ambitious group of thieves orchestrated a plot to steal £350 million worth of DeBeers diamonds from the Millennium Dome in Greenwich.
Twenty years on, Ross Kemp's latest documentary investigates what really happened that day on the Greenwich Peninsula.
The jewels, priceless blue diamonds and the Millennium Star, a flawless 203.04 carats gem estimated to be worth around £200 million, were on display in the heart of the Millenium Dome.
A gang of seven criminals came equipped with a ram-raiding JCB bulldozer and forced themselves inside the Dome, and planned on using a get-away speedboat to escape on the Thames.
But officers from the Met Police's Flying Squad were waiting to foil the group.
Now, in an hour-long ITV documentary, Ross Kemp has revisited what could have been the heist of the century, and the daring undercover operation that busted them.
ITV describe the doc as "the story of a nine-month cat-and-mouse game between the police and a criminal gang intent on stealing diamonds from the Millennium Dome."
In the show, the former East Enders star uses surveillance footage and never-seen-before photography, and tracks down key players in the operation, many of whom have never spoken publicly before.
During the doc, Ross meets Steve, one of the firearms officers who was tasked with infiltrating the raid in November 2000.
Steve recalled that the government, including the home secretary, were made aware of the heist which police had tracked for months in a covert mission.
Still stunned by the plan, Steve said: ‘It’s kind of like out of a movie,’ while viewers compared it to a plot out of Ocean’s 11 or James Bond."
Eventually, two of the thieves managed to smash through the Dome using a JCB tractor, and hacked through the specially designed protected glass.
However the special police unit managed to interrupt their plan and made arrests within minutes.
In the show, Ross also tells of how the perpetrators lost the keys to their own getaway vehicles, and remarked ‘probably worth more than the fake diamonds’.
Because yes, it turns out the real multi-million diamonds had been swapped for the fake ones by DeBeers.
On November 8, 2001 the trial for the Millennium Diamond Heist was heard at the Old Bailey.
ix members of the gang were present as Terry Millman had died of cancer.
Raymond Beston and William Cockram, considered the two leaders of the gang, were both given 18-year sentences, but later had their sentences cut from 18 years to 15.
Lee Wenham was sentenced to four years.
Aldo Ciarrocchi was sentenced to 15 years which was reduced to 12 years in 2004.
Robert Adams was also sentenced to 15 years. Kevin Meredith was cleared of conspiracy to rob but found guilty of conspiring to steal and was sentenced to five years.
But watch the full show for all the details, stories and footage from a bit of Greenwich history.
The Millennium Dome Heist with Ross Kemp aired on ITV at 9pm on Wednesday, November 11.
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