The Gold - how did the Brink's-Mat gold disappear in BBC drama?

This robbery became a seminal event in British criminal history, but the events that followed after are just as compelling to follow, as they saw a huge, international manhunt taking place, as the robbers and their associates worked to make the gold disappear.

Season 2 will delve further into this story, as the drama heads into the '90s, but if you're in need of a recap, then you may be wondering just how the culprits actually did convert the stolen bars into cold hard cash without immediate arrest?

Read on for our full explainer on what actually happened to the Brink’s-Mat gold, and how the robbers executed the scheme so that the stolen gold was never recovered, while their pockets grew deeper.

What happened to the Brink's-Mat gold in BBC drama?

1. First things first, scrub the serial numbers from the gold bars using a portable smelter.
2. Purchase more gold legitimately and keep the receipts – merchant John Palmer puts out a TV advert asking people to sell him their gold. If they're stopped by the police, they have documents to back up their seemingly lawful enterprise.
3. Transport the Brink's-Mat gold in small batches to John, who mixes it with the gold he's acquired legally. But that's not sufficient. It's impossible to disguise it as scrap jewellery because it's too pure.
4. To get around that, they contact a registered gold importer – "someone they can coerce" – who can produce fake documentation paperwork.
5. The gold can then be certified for sale by an assay - a company which measures the purity of gold and has the power to give it the official seal of approval. "If it's gold, they sign it off."
6. The gold merchant can then take the stolen gold, now disguised as a legitimate product, and sell it to a bullion wholesaler – there are four in the UK, one of which is Johnson Matthey, the owner of the stolen product. They're none the wiser about buying back their own gold. Those wholesalers also supply every jeweller in Britain, which explains how so many products came to contain the Brink's-Mat gold.
7. The merchant receives money from the sale of the gold. "If this country had proper banking laws, a bank branch suddenly seeing a company earning vast amounts of money and withdrawing it in cash, they might tell someone about it. But we don't, so they wont." The merchant takes their cut and the rest is paid into a bank account set up in Europe.
8. That money is then invested in a company which uses the capital to invest in property and other ventures.
9. Over time, those processes become swifter and more streamlined until both the gold and the money disappear, "like it never happened".

The Gold season 2 will arrive on BBC iPlayer at 6am on Sunday 8th June, before airing on BBC One at 9pm.

The Gold: The Real Story Behind Brink’s-Mat: Britain’s Biggest Heist by Neil Forsyth and Thomas Turner is available to purchase now.

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