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The robbery of 拢26m of gold bars from a warehouse near Heathrow airport is one of Britain's most notorious - and biggest - heists.

Until now, little has been known about the dogged methods police used to infiltrate the criminal underworld behind the 1983 robbery.

But retired detective superintendent Ian Brown has spoken publicly for the first time about the heist, revealing how he and his unit went "rogue" to travel to Spain in a high-risk unauthorised operation, relying only on local connections and praying they wouldn't spark a diplomatic incident.

Brown made the revelations in the second of a two-part story titled The Hunt For The Brink's-Mat Gold, from the new Sky News podcast series StoryCast.

It's presented by Sky's crime correspondent Martin Brunt, who has followed the case from the start.

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In part one Brown recalled how high-profile suspects came into the frame during the Brink's-Mat investigation.

In part two he says that after initial breaks in the case he and fellow Flying Squad officers followed evidence to the British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean via Spain and the Isle of Man.

From there they were led into a world of South American drugs cartels with ties to Britain.

But it was Brown's decision to continue the operation in Spain, without authorisation from above, that sticks in his memory.

"Nobody had ever gone out and tried to investigate a crime of this scale in a foreign country without it being officially sanctioned back in London first," he said.

"But back then, the culture was: 'as long as we get the job done, no one will ask us how!'

"It was all undercover, no Interpol. We had friends in the Spanish police and they arranged it for us, all unofficial.

Brown's story delves deep into lives of underworld figures behind the crime like Kenneth Noye, who was released from prison recently, having been sentenced to life for the 1996 road rage murder of Stephen Cameron.