It’s incredible, but 40 years ago, on November 26, 1983, six armed men broke into the Brink’s-Mat security warehouse, near London’s Heathrow Airport. The plan was to take a lot of foreign money, but they accidentally stumbled upon gold bars worth more than 570 million reais. At the time it was the biggest in history, but it became even more famous because it exposed how important people were involved in money laundering, driving the financial and real estate markets, as well as causing murders and a lot of controversy. This incredible story is the theme of the great Paramount Plus series, The Gold.

With a large cast – we easily recognize many faces – the series retells the story in detail in just six episodes and is based on extensive research and interviews with some of those involved in the crimes, with some adjustments, obviously. For example, while the criminal side cites real people, such as John Palmer (Tom Cullen), Kenny Noye (Jack Lowden) and Gordon Parry (Sean Harris, as well as the police officer who led the investigation, Brian Boyce (Hugh Bonneville), but Edwyn Copper (Dominic Cooper) – the corrupt lawyer who helps with the laundering – and detective Nicki Jenkins (Charlotte Spencer), who brings together three women involved in the work. None of this takes away the interest of the series, especially since John Palmer was arrested trying to enter in Brazil and many say that the robbery generated the ‘Curse of Brink’s-Mat’, after all, around 20 people linked to the crime were murdered.

The first episode retraces the Brink’s-Mat robbery and how the police quickly get to the thieves but are too late to stop the movement of the gold. In the cat and mouse game that follows, many surprises guarantee the interest of those who know nothing about history, which means everyone was from England and under 40. Many people!

There is a lot of drama and great performances from Cullen, unrecognizable to many without his beard (which he wore in Becoming Elizabeth and Knightfall, for example), and from Lowden, in a role directly opposite to the one he does in Slow Horses. Worth every minute! After all, it is said that anyone wearing gold jewelry purchased in the UK after 1983 is probably wearing a bit of the Brink’s Mat theft, as around 50% of the gold has still not been recovered four decades later.

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