Dubbed ‘The Big Cheese’ for his criminal prowess, Keith Cheeseman sounds proud, rather than remorseful about his gangster past – boasting about meeting everyone from The Krays to football legend George Best.
Claiming he enjoyed hanging out with Morecambe and Wise, Cheeseman was the only criminal to be convicted for Britain’s biggest ever bank heist – the 1990 theft of bearer bonds worth £850M today.
Now, 83, and enjoying retirement on the Turkish Riviera, the pensioner – who served six-and-a-half years for the bank heist – features in a Crime+Investigation documentary, Heist: Robbing the Bank of England, with Marcel Theroux.
Called ‘The biggest bank heist no one has heard of’ Marcel Theroux said of the 1990 robbery: “This is an astonishing robbery. It was amazing to me that I hadn’t heard about it before, because it took place in the London of my early 20s, in the London where I was starting out as a journalist.”
In the early 1970s Cheeseman says he was driving a Lamborghini, smoking Montecristo cigars and mixing with glamour models and celebrities – not bad for a normal working class lad from Luton, Bedfordshire. And before his imprisonment for the heist, he says: “I must admit I was a bit of a celebrity in the 90s and I still am, in a way, today. Here in Turkey, more so than ever – they make lots of fuss. The Turkish have a different attitude – one I’m a criminal and two I’ve been married five times – they are fascinated by me,” he laughs.
Never one to admit defeat, when Cheeseman failed a trial for Dunstable Town as a striker, instead of giving up he bought the club. Convincing soccer legend George Best to come out of retirement, he hit headlines when Private Eye questioned how the boss of Dunstable Town was driving a Lamborghini? The answer was by false accounting and his criminal skills saw him jailed for six years – although he was out in three for good behaviour and because, he claims “keeping the Governor of Wormwood Scrubs constantly amused”.
A shopkeeper’s son, before joining the criminal fraternity he ran a building company. “The banking system ruined a very successful building company that I was in control of,” he recalls. “That was 1970 or 1971 – they reneged on my overdraft – took it off me overnight. I had £7m worth of building going on and because we were a new company, they were retaining lots of money from us. It was safe money because it was government money, it was council houses and car parks and things like that.
“So it was silly really – like a boy throwing his toys out the pram – thinking I’ll teach you. So I started screwing them, basically. I started testing banks as I just felt like banks charge you the earth for doing nothing – the banking world is a system of its own. I hated banks and because I owned Dunstable FC I used to entertain more bank managers than Spurs have supporters.”
When he got sent down for the City Bonds robbery of May 1990, he spent time in Parkhurst Prison with the Krays. “I knew Ronnie and Reggie because I was in Parkhurst with them – I got sent up for the bank robbery and for some reason they treated me like a gangster,” he says. “If you do something twice then you’re an organised criminal. I’m certainly not a gangster – I wouldn’t run in with a gun and bash someone on the top of the head – that’s not my scene. I’d discuss what I’m going to take off you over a nice Chateaux Margot.
‘I’ll tell you a funny story. I was in Parkhurst with the Krays and my brother and sister-in-law who are very straight came to visit me. My sister-in-law’s sitting there waiting for me and when I came in she said ‘oh we’ve been well looked after – two lovely young lads next to us bought us a pot of tea.’ I said ‘do you know who those two young boys are? That’s Reggie and Ronnie Kray,” he laughs.
He also knew Charlie and Eddie Richardson – enemies of the Krays – who had a reputation as some of London’s most sadistic gangsters. They were dubbed the Torture Gang becasue they allegedly pulled out teeth using pliers, cut off victims’ toes using bolt cutters and nail people to floors using 6-inch nails. “They were enemies outside prison but not on the inside,” Keith explains. “They were nice lads you know, we just used to have a chat but my world – bonds and so forth – was far different from them running into a bank and shooting up in the air.
“It was just a different world, I liked them and got on with them, they were never a problem to me. Same as the heavy mafia in New York – big mobsters like John Gotti. They had a different attitude to life – John was kept waiting on a Wednesday by this guy for the third time, so he ordered a whack on him. He said ‘he’s not keeping me waiting for three weeks on the trot, get rid of him’ – and so they got rid of him. But still, John was a lovely guy – they’re not always walking round with guns shooting each other.
“When I was in the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in New York, John used to growl at the guards and they’d run away because they knew he’d only got to spread the word outside and their families would be in trouble. The best idea is to stay away so you don’t get into any trouble. But they’re not vicious every minute of every day. They can be charming – they probably listen to the Archers.”
He has fascinating stories of what gangsters were really like and says being in Parkhurst Prison wasn’t so bad. “If you’ve got a bit of money behind you and you’ve got people who want to know you because you have a bit more influence than most, you live very comfortably. It wasn’t slopping in and slopping out. I spent more time in worse hospitals and that was with Bupa!” he jokes.
“I’ve had a good life paid for by a life of crime. I met a lot of interesting people, yes – the Krays were animals but they had a charming side. The life of a bank robber in the 70s was like being a celebrity and because I owned Dunstable FC I hung out with people like George Best and Morecambe and Wise. A gangster is not me – I’m described as such and I don’t mind but gangsters are people like the Krays. I’ve met them but I work with a Mont Blanc pen and a bottle of good whiskey. I’d describe myself as a criminal but gangster is a big word – I don’t think I’m in that sort of league – I was just a guy making a damn good living from banks.”
Heist: Robbing the Bank of England premiers on Monday, 3rd November, on Crime+Investigation.
