The Millennium Dome Heist | Lee Wenham on Robberies, Prison and Leaving Crime | 4

British Scandal

Wondery

Scandal, Alice Levine, Great Britain, Society & Culture, Exhibit C, British, England, History, Matt Forde, Documentary

4.5 • 6.5K Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From burying cash to busting into the Dome, Lee Wenham's criminal career reads like a Hollywood script. But how does a small-time crook end up masterminding one of Britain's most audacious heists? Alice Levine and Matt Forde sit down with Wenham to uncover the man behind the plan. He reveals how breaking into the Dome was easier than cracking a cash point, why diamonds never impressed him and how prison life was a breeze (for him, at least). Plus, the one regret that still haunts this reformed robber.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	From Wondry, I'm Alice Levine.
0:11.2	And I'm Matt Ford.
0:12.7	And this is British Scandal.
0:14.2	Well, that was a heist and a half map. How do we think that series went down? How do you feel?
0:29.3	I loved it. I loved the thrill of it all, how daft it all was. But really, the scandal here is the sheer
0:35.1	audacity that these men had to target the Millennium Dome,
0:38.6	at that point the most famous and controversial landmark in the country,
0:42.4	and think that they could just walk out with a 350 million pound diamond in broad daylight.
0:48.6	In hindsight, there's no way it could have worked.
0:51.0	They're using materials literally brought from a joke shop.
0:53.9	It's like an addition of the Beano. Yeah, it's like if the Bash Street kids were trying to do a diamond heist. If you're stealing something worth 350 million pounds, spend more than your pocket money on all the equipment needed, maybe. Well, they'd spent the rest on bubble gum and playing cards. So what alternative did they have? But hindsight is 2020, of course. Clearly at the time,
1:11.7	they were confident they were going to be able to do this and sail off into the sunset.
1:15.4	Exactly. And we could speculate on what made them so sure of themselves all day long.
1:19.8	Or we could hear from one of the ringleaders. He's the author of the book Diamond Gangster.
1:24.8	He's recently appeared in Guy Ritchie's Netflix documentary, The Diamond Heist,
1:29.2	and he's now a landscape gardener who's turned his back on crime.
1:33.3	Lee Wenham joins us next.
1:42.1	Your first great love story is free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com.
1:47.6	That's audible.combe.uk slash Wondery.
1:53.3	Hey pod listeners, have we got a fun new game for you?
1:56.3	It's called Quick, Quick, Quick, Quick, a game that has outrageous questions that will keep you playing and laughing for hours.
2:01.5	Like this. Quick, quick, quick. List three gifts you'd never give a cowboy.
	...

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