The Diamond Heist

What Is the Series About?

The Diamond Heist is a Netflix documentary limited series about one of the most audacious — and ultimately farcical — robbery attempts in British criminal history: the November 2000 plot to steal the 203-carat Millennium Star diamond and a broader De Beers diamond collection from the Millennium Dome in Greenwich, London. The three-part series, directed by Jesse Vile and executive-produced by Guy Ritchie, premiered on Netflix on April 16, 2025. It combines archival footage, reconstruction sequences, and first-person testimony from participants on both sides of the law to reconstruct what might have been the most valuable robbery in history — had it succeeded.

Crucially, it did not. The gang never touched the real diamond. And that failure, engineered by months of covert Metropolitan Police surveillance, is at the heart of the series' appeal.

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The Case

In the year 2000, the Millennium Dome on the Greenwich peninsula was home to a spectacular temporary exhibit: a De Beers diamond collection headlined by the Millennium Star, a flawless 203-carat gem valued at approximately £200 million. The full collection was estimated to be worth around £350 million, making it one of the most valuable displays of its kind ever staged in the United Kingdom.

The man who decided to steal it was Raymond "Black Ray" Betson, identified by investigators and by the docuseries itself as the mastermind behind the operation. Betson assembled a crew that included his right-hand man William Cockram, as well as Lee Wenham, Robert Adams, and a fifth conspirator identified in court records as Ciarrocchi, described as being from Bermondsey.

The plan was a smash-and-grab raid. The gang intended to use a JCB digger to break through the dome's exterior, overwhelm security, smash the display cases, and make their getaway by speedboat on the Thames — a cinematic escape route that would not have looked out of place in one of Guy Ritchie's own films.

What the gang did not know was that the Metropolitan Police Flying Squad had been monitoring their movements for months. Using extensive surveillance and undercover operations, detectives tracked the conspiracy as it developed. By the time the gang moved on the dome, investigators had reportedly already replaced the Millennium Star with a replica. On the day of the attempted raid in November 2000, Flying Squad officers were concealed inside the dome, ready and waiting.

The gang was arrested on the spot. No diamond was stolen. No member of the public was injured.

The subsequent trial took place at the Old Bailey. Betson and Cockram each received 18-year sentences. Adams and Ciarrocchi were each sentenced to 15 years. Wenham, whose role was judged to be less central, received 9 years. He has since been released from prison after serving half his sentence and appears in the Netflix docuseries, offering a rare first-person account from inside the gang.

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Production

The series was directed by Jesse Vile and carries Guy Ritchie — the British filmmaker best known for Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch — as executive producer. That creative pairing is notable: Ritchie built his career on stylised, darkly comedic depictions of British gangland culture, and the Millennium Dome heist, with its speed-boat getaway plan and its almost theatrical failure, reads like a plot he might have invented.

Ritchie's involvement gives the series a distinctive energy. Rather than treating the story with the solemn gravity of a conventional true-crime documentary, the production leans into the absurdity and ambition of the plan without losing sight of the serious criminal enterprise at its core.

A key production asset is the participation of Lee Wenham, who appears on camera to discuss his role and the gang's thinking. His account gives the series access to a perspective rarely available in documentaries about foiled crimes: that of someone who was inside the room when it went wrong. The series also draws on testimony from law enforcement figures familiar with the Flying Squad operation, providing the investigative counterpoint to Wenham's criminal perspective.

The three-episode format keeps the storytelling taut. The Guardian's review and other outlets praised the series for its pacing and its ability to sustain tension even though the outcome — the gang's capture — is known from the outset.

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Reception

Critical reception for The Diamond Heist has been broadly positive. Reviewers have described it as a thrilling, high-energy retelling of a story that might have been engineered for the screen. The combination of an extraordinarily ambitious criminal plan, a police operation that unfolded over months, and the sheer improbability of the diamond being swapped for a fake gave critics plenty to work with.

The Guardian called it an entertaining caper documentary that benefits from its short runtime and strong source access. Decider praised the pacing and the novelty of hearing from Wenham directly. LADbible reported an enthusiastic audience reaction following the April 16 premiere.

Not all coverage was uncritical. At least one review flagged the concern that the series — particularly given Ritchie's stylistic fingerprints — risks glamorizing real-life criminal activity. The participation of a convicted gang member as a sympathetic narrator is a recurring tension in true-crime production, and some commentators noted that The Diamond Heist does not entirely resolve that tension.

As of publication, a formal IMDb user rating has not been confirmed in available sources. The series holds the IMDb title ID tt31806040.

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The Case Today

The Millennium Dome itself has long since been repurposed. It is now the O2 Arena, one of the most visited entertainment venues in Europe. The De Beers diamond exhibition is gone, but the story of the attempted robbery has never entirely faded from public memory — it was too spectacular, and too perfectly failed, to be forgotten.

Lee Wenham is free, having served approximately half of his nine-year sentence, and is now speaking publicly about his role in the conspiracy. The current status of Raymond Betson, William Cockram, Robert Adams, and Ciarrocchi has not been confirmed in available sources at the time of writing.

The Millennium Star itself — the real one, never touched by the gang — remains in the De Beers collection. Its 2000 valuation of approximately £200 million made it one of the most valuable gemstones ever displayed to the public. Whether it has been exhibited publicly since the attempted theft is not confirmed in available sources.

For viewers drawn to British crime stories that sit at the intersection of brazen ambition and catastrophic miscalculation, The Diamond Heist delivers one of the most complete examples the genre has to offer. The crime was real, the plan was extraordinary, and the failure was total — which is precisely what makes it so compelling on screen.