How a group of elderly men carried out the biggest diamond heist in British history

These are the eye-catching details of the case:

• The alleged ringleader, 76-year-old Brian Reader (nicknamed “The Master”) used his senior citizen’s bus pass, which gives him free travel, to get to the crime scene.
• The heist was three years in the making. The gang apparently hatched the plan in a pub in North London.
• The gang disguised themselves as workmen. A man known only as “Basil” let them into the building via a fire escape. Then, they climbed down an elevator shaft and spent the next two nights breaking into the vault.
• The loot was loaded into a getaway van and stashed in various hideaways, including a casserole dish and a cemetery.
• While the gang removed closed-circuit cameras from inside the building, they failed to account for video in the street. Police were able to trace the car of one of the burglars—75-year-old John “Kenny” Collins, who reportedly frustrated other gang members for falling asleep during his lookout.
• Police then set up a massive surveillance program, tracking the suspects closely. Remember the pub they hatched the plan in? Police recorded them there admitting to, and bragging about, the raid.
• Police found a copy of Forensics for Dummies at the house of one of the gang members.

The police have been able to recover some of the stolen loot, but two-thirds of it remains hidden. Most of the gang has pleaded guilty to their charges, and the only one who didn’t was found guilty by a jury.

They were “analogue criminals operating in a digital world,” according to a former investigator. The heist is “probably the last of its type.”