It's the biggest robbery you've never heard of!

Despite being the largest street theft in British history, it has remained largely forgotten. But a new documentary lifts the lid on the audacious daylight robbery that netted nearly £300million. JAMES RAMPTON reports

- JAMES RAMPTON

AT 9.30am on May 2, 1990, £292million in bearer bonds was stolen at knifepoint in broad daylight from a courier in the City of London. Within moments, the bonds had vanished off the face of the earth.

Thirty-five years on, the ringleaders of this audacious heist known as the City Bonds Robbery - are still at large.

And it remains one of the most significant unsolved crimes of all time.

In a shocking new revelation, it has now been claimed that far more than the reported £292million (the equivalent of £850million today) was stolen.

Keith Cheeseman, the only man ever convicted of the crime, is adamant that the courier was robbed of £427million worth of bonds. So what happened to the missing £135million?

If true, this fresh development would mean millions of pounds entered the global criminal ecosystem to bankroll any number of nefarious enterprises.

The City of London Police at first mistook the crime for a random mugging.

But they soon came to understand that cash from the bonds had been swiftly siphoned through black market money launderers to finance global organised crime, drug trafficking and terrorism.

Such notorious organisations as the New York mafia, the IRA and Colombian drug lords, including the infamous Pablo Escobar, were thought to have been involved.

Following the money to Miami, Glasgow, Peru, Zürich, New York, Cyprus, London, Netherlands, Scotland, Singapore and West Germany, law enforcement officers recovered all but £2million of the haul.

It is alleged the police were aided by a well-placed informant inside the gang.