A jury at London's Central Criminal Court returned its verdict on a series of charges relating to the Feb 21, 2006 heist after eight days of deliberations and a seven-month trial.

Disguised with sophisticated prosthetic make-up, the robbers kidnapped the manager of the Securitas depot, his wife and their young child at gunpoint to gain entry to the building in Tonbridge, in the county of Kent.

CCTV footage shown in court showed them trussing up 14 employees with cable ties before loading the cash into a 7.5-tonne lorry during the 66-minute early morning raid and escaping.

The hostages were warned they would die unless they complied, the court heard.

Two of the defendants were cleared. Those convicted will be sentenced at the same court on Tuesday.

Although gang members got away with what prosecutors described as a 'king's ransom,' they were forced to leave behind £153 million because there was no more space in their truck.

Police eventually recovered £21 million of the cash at sites in Kent and southeast London but much of the rest is thought to have been spirited away to Morocco and northern Cyprus, some of it turned into assets.

The hairdresser who provided the robbers with their disguises became the star prosecution witness after she agreed to give testimony against them. All charges against her were dropped.

The robbery had echoes of the 'Great Train Robbery' of 1963, in which a gang of criminals held up an overnight mail train and made off with £2.6 million - the equivalent of about £33 million in 2008. -- AFP