On Tuesday, as the world teetered on the brink of war in the Middle East, the Financial Times’ front page focused on the possibility that holders of gold from France and Germany were considering moving their investments out of New York due to Donald Trump’s erratic policy shifts and general global turbulence. We are regularly told that the only safe way to preserve and save our wealth in the event of a total financial and economic collapse is to buy gold. Gold has long been the basis of national currencies, and even in the age of bitcoin it retains its age-old attraction, summed up in the phrases ‘gold standard’ or ‘gilt-edged’.

Meanwhile, the current hit drama series on terrestrial TV this month is simply titled The Gold – a fictionalised account of the aftermath of the Brink’s-Mat bullion robbery in 1983, when villains made off with £26 million in gold (worth £111 million today), along with diamonds and cash from a warehouse at Heathrow.

The most bizarre true crime story this year was surely the theft of a........

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