Stephen Gillen says he was the leader of a specialized four-person burglary gang carrying out robberies in the UK during the late ’80s and early ’90s. The gang targeted high-value homes and commercial properties, such as jewelry stores and designer-brand warehouses.
Gillen speaks to Insider about his experience in breaking into properties, the stolen-goods market, and home-security systems. Home invasions are on the rise globally. Recent high-profile examples include the robbery of Kim Kardashian in Paris and of the UK footballer Raheem Sterling during the 2022 World Cup.
Gillen claims he spent a total of 20 years in prison and was released in 2006. Nowadays, he is the CEO of the media-production agency Roar Media Creative Studio.
Find out more on his website.
https://stephengillen.com
Gillen speaks to Insider about his experience in breaking into properties, the stolen-goods market, and home-security systems. Home invasions are on the rise globally. Recent high-profile examples include the robbery of Kim Kardashian in Paris and of the UK footballer Raheem Sterling during the 2022 World Cup.
Gillen claims he spent a total of 20 years in prison and was released in 2006. Nowadays, he is the CEO of the media-production agency Roar Media Creative Studio.
Find out more on his website.
https://stephengillen.com
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 My name is Stephen Gillen.
00:02 It was estimated that I stole over $5 million worth of high-value goods
00:07 as the leader of an organised burglary gang.
00:11 This is how crime works.
00:12 Our burglary gang would always carry some kind of weapons,
00:19 but that is to control the situation.
00:22 The emphasis is not to hurt people,
00:25 but to command dominance without any fuss or unnecessary violence.
00:31 I was operating in the late 80s, early 90s,
00:41 all around the greater London area and the home counties.
00:46 My first introduction to the gang was just people that we hung out with
00:50 and, you know, grew up with pretty much.
00:53 Burglary gangs pretty much always know each other already.
00:58 They may have gone to school together, or they know each other's brothers,
01:01 or they would have worked with each other in another form of organised crime.
01:05 This is the way our gang was formed.
01:08 I was a leader of a gang of four, sometimes five people.
01:13 You'd have the lookout guy, who was the eyes, who would drop us off.
01:18 He'd have the muscle. He would be the brute force.
01:21 Then you'd have the jack of all trades.
01:24 He would also bring a lot of information.
01:26 And then you'd have someone there who was always really savvy with alarms, with sensors.
01:32 There were a couple of times where people, you know, would be arrested.
01:35 It's the nature of this game.
01:37 Many times we would not want to bring anyone else in,
01:40 because we would be able to replay that and execute what had to be done anyway.
01:44 But on rare occasions, if we needed another body, as it were,
01:50 there were always a selection of people within our groups.
01:54 Scouting for properties is a role all by itself.
02:04 The properties the gang would target,
02:06 one would be ones that we were sent to with specific information,
02:11 usually knowing there was high value items in there.
02:16 Others, there would be surveillance on them.
02:18 They would be watched.
02:19 Information could be from a disgruntled employee
02:23 and just other people even close to the family.
02:26 I think all this posting and showing of wealth on social media,
02:32 where people live, what they're doing all the time, is very, very dangerous.
02:36 It was different back then when we was active.
02:39 But I know now a lot of really high-end burglary gangs that
02:45 specifically go onto the internet, and that's where they get their targeting.
02:52 Kim Kardashian is the name, professional footballers.
02:55 They're very susceptible to that happening to them.
02:59 It was very easy even to pick the time when to go to the properties,
03:04 because they'd be posting saying, "I'm at the Oscars,"
03:06 or "I'm away at Switzerland for the weekend filming."
03:11 A burglar decodes a target in a certain specific way.
03:17 First thing he's looking at is going to be the weakest part of the building.
03:21 Houses which are semi-detached, houses that are on the corner of the road
03:27 or have a lot of shrubbery would be a target.
03:31 People going there in a uniform as a postman or a worker or whatever.
03:37 This is so if anyone's looking out the window or watching or passing in the car,
03:42 they look like they have every reason to be where they are.
03:45 A great deterrent, it's not a full deterrent, is that places would have a new alarm.
03:51 Dogs is another one.
03:54 When they see obstacles like this, they're more likely to move onto an easier target.
04:01 Our gang, you'd come aware of a dog in the parking.
04:04 But there have been times, it's very easy to get a nice bit of meat,
04:07 put loads of Valium or whatever in it,
04:10 and sling it over the fence or put it into the dog's kennel.
04:13 The best time for the gang to approach a target really varies,
04:26 which is why the surveillance and the location are very, very important.
04:33 Commercials were generally more at night,
04:36 just because of during the day there'd be a lot of people in these units.
04:41 Smashing glass is not just noisy, it's very messy.
04:45 And if you're climbing through glass, then you have a big percentage of leaving DNA,
04:49 blood and all these kind of samples.
04:51 It wouldn't be our preferred entry point.
04:55 Overpowering or circumventing private security
04:59 is something a burglary gang would not want to do.
05:02 They'd look at ways to get around that.
05:05 In them days for us, security codes in residential properties
05:11 would usually have four or five numbers.
05:14 So there were technologies that we had that could plug into that
05:19 to release the number.
05:22 And then you had safes and there was different ways to drill safes.
05:26 Or in some cases, like the old days, people would even blow them,
05:30 but not so much.
05:32 We would be looking to do as least work as possible.
05:36 So it was basically about dismantling the alarm systems
05:39 and getting through that first level of protection.
05:42 We had other techniques that we used to use,
05:46 which was a building foam,
05:49 which we could put into alarm system that would harden
05:52 so the bell wouldn't be able to ring.
05:57 But then we'd have to do the same on the internal alarm system.
06:01 Other ways into a building,
06:02 it's the understanding of alarms and how they work.
06:07 It's usually, if it's not sensor lead,
06:11 you would know it would be metal on metal for doors.
06:14 So sometimes we would just chop the whole bottom of the door off
06:18 and pull that in.
06:20 The bottom out, the alarms wouldn't trigger
06:24 and that would give us the valuable time that we would need
06:27 to get to the internal alarm system and disable it.
06:30 (saw buzzing)
06:37 Our gang wouldn't necessarily target homes
06:41 or commercial properties with people in them,
06:43 but sometimes we did.
06:45 Our burglary gang would always carry some kind of weapons,
06:49 not heavy weapons like guns,
06:51 but that is to control the situation.
06:54 The emphasis is not to hurt people,
06:57 but to command dominance,
07:00 to get the work done without any fuss
07:03 or unnecessary violence.
07:05 People would always comply
07:08 'cause we was very professional in our approach.
07:12 The places people would hide items,
07:15 usually they're just out there in a master bedroom
07:20 or in a cupboard or in a jewellery box.
07:23 A lot of other times they'll be in the safe.
07:25 Sometimes the safe is open.
07:27 We have found some of this stuff
07:29 in the most unbelievable places,
07:31 in the back of cupboards,
07:32 rolled up in socks,
07:33 in the back of drawers,
07:34 even under the bed and the mattress.
07:37 One of the most successful burglary jobs we've done,
07:41 me and the gang,
07:43 was a commercial that had a lot of
07:46 really high-end designer goods.
07:48 It had alarms.
07:50 It was in central London.
07:52 It was a very, very busy location.
07:56 We had been given information about this place.
08:00 On this job, we left two people outside
08:03 on the road as lookout.
08:04 So only two of us went in as the main lead.
08:08 I was one of them.
08:10 Once we got over the outer,
08:12 through the outer doors and into the courtyard,
08:14 there was only a really, really flimsy alarm,
08:18 but we put the foam into the alarm.
08:21 We started wrapping up the stuff.
08:23 We had someone out there.
08:25 They reversed the van in,
08:27 and we loaded that van very, very quickly.
08:31 That was taken then to what we used to call a slaughter.
08:35 And a slaughter was where the goods would be unloaded
08:38 and then moved on to the buyer.
08:41 Getting rid of the proceeds of a burglary
08:50 is one of the most risky times,
08:54 but sometimes we would be stuck with certain items.
08:56 I remember once with a stamp collection
08:58 which come out of a safe.
09:01 Because of the rarity and the misprints
09:04 on some of these stamps,
09:05 which was what made them valuable in the first place,
09:08 it was very hard to find a buyer for these.
09:12 Their great value translated to a much lower price
09:16 which we had to take.
09:17 We had very key influential jewelers in London
09:22 who would break up the stones,
09:24 who would weigh the gold,
09:26 who would be able to move any amount of jewelry on very quickly.
09:31 We had other people who was in the antiques market.
09:34 They would act as middlemen.
09:37 The paintings guys, they was a different market.
09:40 You know, and I had a couple of people
09:42 who worked in that area,
09:44 and it was very specialized, you know,
09:47 and they would usually always go to private collectors.
09:51 The retail price of diamonds or jewels or gold or antiques
09:57 is greatly diminished by the time it goes to the black market.
10:01 If you had a 50 grand diamond,
10:02 you'd more than likely go and get 12, 13 for it.
10:07 With gold, you'd get a quarter of the price scrap.
10:10 There were many times I had paintings worth hundreds of thousands.
10:15 You'd be lucky to get a few thousand for some of these paintings.
10:20 I think the market in stolen goods for burglary gangs
10:24 is pretty much the same.
10:26 There is a tendency now to go for a lot of high-performance cars
10:31 because they can be shipped abroad,
10:33 replated, and there's a lot of money in this to order.
10:39 The gang always broke down profit four ways, five ways,
10:43 whoever was involved and depending on how much of a leading role
10:48 they had in any given job.
10:50 Some would fund a lifestyle of drugs and parties and going out.
10:57 Others, it would be cars and watches or women even.
11:02 Sometimes the money was definitely used to invest in the next job.
11:07 Needed equipment or even to pay off someone
11:10 who was giving us new quality information.
11:14 Our burglary gang was independent.
11:18 We didn't have to kick money up to anyone else.
11:21 Everyone was part of a wider high-level criminal network.
11:26 In my time, London's underworld, its organized crime circles
11:32 were very tight-knit circles but loosely affiliated.
11:38 There were some corrupt officials and corrupt police officers
11:43 who sometimes would want to get damaging paperwork
11:46 or would target rivals.
11:48 Due to the crimes I was committing, I ended up in prison.
11:57 My further sentences related to organized crime,
12:01 I was given 17 years, which I served as a Category A prisoner.
12:06 Many people talk about crimes they've done,
12:09 crimes they missed, other crimes that are out there
12:13 and can be revisited or done again.
12:15 It was an education, a university of crime.
12:18 Sometimes you come across some really clever guys
12:23 who would tell you about alarms and safes and locks,
12:26 which could be applied.
12:28 I first met Charles Bronson because of our level of security category
12:36 within the prison system.
12:38 Charles Bronson was a larger-than-life character.
12:41 He was an amazing storyteller and an artist.
12:46 He was a very, very funny man and he could switch at any time.
12:51 He had to be managed very, very carefully.
12:53 I never had a problem with him.
12:55 I think sometimes long sentences are a deterrent.
13:01 It's more about the lifestyle, the upbringing and the conditioning.
13:06 These people need more opportunity and they need to be helped
13:09 and given education and the right role models.
13:15 In the UK, sadly, home invasion burglaries have been
13:19 on a steady increase year by year now.
13:22 I don't think police in the UK are doing enough
13:26 to respond to non-violent crimes.
13:28 In many ways, these are put on a lower tier of urgency.
13:34 And of course, alarm systems are so much more sophisticated now.
13:39 Everywhere is covered by cameras, drones, directional mics,
13:44 all kinds of different ways of tracking criminals.
13:48 This has led many criminals to go into cybercrime
13:52 and more faceless areas of crime.
14:01 I was released from prison for my final sentence,
14:04 which was possession of a firearm in 2006.
14:08 So many years had passed, 12 years,
14:11 so the members of the burglary gang from the old days had dispersed.
14:16 It's not conducive to having a family life.
14:18 Everyone around you suffers and I knew I needed to change my life,
14:23 but everyone around me was either dead or in prison.
14:26 I went on to work real, honest, manual labour.
14:31 Within 18 months, I went from labourer to supervisor,
14:36 to running my own contracts, to starting my own business.
14:39 I'm CEO, co-founder of Raw Media Creative Studios,
14:46 which is a brand development TV and film digital agency.
14:52 (MACHINE WHIRRING)
14:54 I was born in England, but as a six-month-old child,
15:01 was taken to Belfast and left there in the middle of the war over there.
15:06 It was a normal occurrence to hear the bombs and guns.
15:11 I was brought up in an environment of fear, constant violence.
15:16 My surrogate mother died of cancer when I was nine years old.
15:21 So I was going back to England and London, which was alien to me.
15:26 I had a succession of children's homes and foster homes,
15:30 where the basic road for me was to survive.
15:33 Some of them was quite brutal,
15:35 but there was a lot of learning from the older ones above me about what to do,
15:41 and that was the start of the grooming of crime.
15:44 I'd have guns and the really serious violence around me from the ages of 15, 16.
15:48 I was exposed to that very quickly.
15:51 From that point on, it was very much a grooming thing from the older ones.
15:56 They saw, "Here's one we can manipulate.
15:58 "Here's one who can be sent out there.
16:01 "Here's one who I see myself in that's going to be useful to us."
16:05 And so it translates up the ladder.