Noye is on licence from a life sentence for stabbing to death Stephen Cameron in 1996 and then fleeing to Spain
It was the biggest bullion robbery of all time — £26 million in gold bars stolen from a Brink’s-Mat warehouse near Heathrow.
In the 1983 London burglary, six armed men in balaclavas – including one wearing a Trilby – entered the warehouse on November 26, just after 6.40am.
Despite years of elite police resources pulled into the investigation, only two of the original sextet were convicted and a good part of the loot is yet to be recovered.
What began as a textbook armed robbery went on to give British authorities a peep behind the veil of large-scale organised crime, and a web of crooks across the world, who were making dirty money clean.
The property belonged to security company Brink’s Mat and the robbers were there because they knew there was cash to be racked up. They knew because their inside man – security guard Anthony Black – had told them. He even opened the door of the warehouse to let them in.
Led by Black’s brother-in-law, Brian Robinson, and Trilby-clad Michael ‘Micky’ McAvoy, the gang tied up the guards and poured petrol over them, threatening to light it if they didn’t comply.
Incredibly, inside was more than three tonnes of gold bullion, packed into more than 70 cardboard boxes were almost 7,000 gold bars.
Weighed down by a heap of gold, the van idled its way out of Heathrow after one of the robbers wished the security guards a merry Christmas.
It didn’t take the police long to connect Black to the raid and he soon implicated Robinson and McAvoy (who punched Black when he went to identify him in a police line-up).
The two were later sentenced to 25 years in prison. Black was sentenced to six years – and later had to assume a completely different identity, as becoming an informant had put him at great danger.
Meanwhile, the still-free robbers still needed a way to make their loot into cash.
The only problem was that the bars – valuable as they were – would have them landed in jail in no time.
Noye was released from prison in 2019 after 20 years behind bars
This is where Kenneth Noye came into play, along with John Palmer, the former director of gold and jewellery dealing company Scadlynn Ltd.
The gold – understood to have been handled by Noye – would be melted and corrupted into a cheaper concealed offering by Palmer, who had a smelter in his back garden
The crooks would then haul it over to the Sheffield Assay Office for official approval and authoritisation – which, surprisingly, it received.
Reportedly, £13millon-worth was disposed of in this way. The movement of cash through a local bank soon aroused the suspicion of the Bank of England and surveillance operations of known villains began.
Noye stabbed undercover police officer DC John Fordham ten times in 1985 after finding him hiding in the grounds of his 20-acre estate in West Kingsdown, Kent.
The officer was keeping a watch on Noye at the time as he was suspected of handling gold bullion from the raid.
