It was the summer of 2017, and the man who robbed Melniks had pulled off the first central London casino heist in decades. And Melniks had arranged to be able to monitor the casino’s CCTV cameras remotely on his iPad from anywhere in the world. Security had been instructed to submit customers from certain eastern European countries to stringent background checks. He had become more and more short-tempered with employees. The Latvian businessman had hired two mountainous British bodyguards dressed in black suits to shadow him and began to keep his appearances at the casino brief.

He tossed his disguise in a bin and disappeared underground.Įven before the robbery, the casino’s owner Vasilijs Melniks had appeared increasingly paranoid to staff.

A security guard followed as the man made his way towards a nearby Tube station and watched as he unzipped the boiler suit, removed the balaclava and put on a baseball cap. The robber then began to stuff his bag with bills from the cash drawer, carefully leaving the £5 notes aside.Īfter taking the money, the thief exited the casino through a service door connecting to a hotel in the same building. The masked man looked the cashier in the eyes and leapt over the desk, sending the terrified worker crashing backwards into a heap on the floor. An employee sitting behind the cash desk glanced up from his computer at what he thought was a customer and saw the balaclava. Croupiers and waiters panicked and began to flee, running across the casino’s swirling green and red floral carpets. Moments later, the gunman burst into the blinking lights of the gaming floor. When a chauffeur who was waiting at the front desk began to shout at him, the intruder paused, making a silent but unmistakable gesture with his hand: he was armed, and this was a robbery. The man carried a dark bag up the marble and gold-fronted staircase inside and barged into the casino’s reception area.

Just before 10am on a rainy June morning, a lone man wearing a black balaclava and a blue boiler suit approached the brass-plated entrance of the Park Lane Club in London. Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

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