Baker Street robbery.
The Baker Street robbery was the burglary of safe deposit boxes at the Baker Street branch of Lloyds Bank in London, England, on the night of 11 September 1971. A gang tunnelled 40 feet (12 m) from a rented shop two doors away to come up through the floor of the vault (diagram shown). The property stolen was probably worth between £1.25 and £3 million; only £231,000 was recovered by the police. The burglary was planned by Anthony Gavin, a career criminal, who was inspired by "The Red-Headed League", a short story by Arthur Conan Doyle in which Sherlock Holmes waits in a bank vault to arrest a gang who have tunnelled in through the floor. Gavin and his colleagues rented a leather goods shop, and tunnelled during weekends. Police found members of the gang soon after the break-in; one of the burglars had signed the lease in his own name, and informers led investigators to Gavin. Many of the papers relating to the burglary remain under embargo at The National Archives until January 2071.
