Hugh Bonneville looks forward to the second season of “The Gold”

The second series of The Gold, soon to air on BBC, tells the true impact of the 1983 Brink’s Mat robbery on Britain.

Hugh Bonneville, who plays DCI Brian Boyce in the drama, gives Yahoo UK a taste of what will be covered in upcoming episodes and reveals which events will be at the heart of the true crime drama. The Brink’s-Mat robbery was one of the UK’s biggest robberies, with £26 million worth of gold, diamonds and cash stolen from a warehouse in Heathrow.

Read more: The crazy true story behind the BBC drama “The Gold”

The first season showed how Mick McAvoy and his gang stole the items and what happened immediately afterward. However, the new season will go even further, with the actor revealing: “In the second season we’ll find out where the other half of the gold went, or where another part of the money ended up in the Caribbean and Tenerife as part of the timeshare schemes that (gold dealer) John Palmer organised.”

“And when he became famous, bigger fish came into play and he started laundering huge sums of money and was involved in bringing the first wave of ecstasy to the UK. That one incident had a huge ripple effect in society.”

Bonneville adds: “When you read the script and then read up on it, you realise what an extraordinary impact this event had on British society and that the money that was ultimately laundered from the molten gold has had an impact on society ever since.”

“In the first season, we examined how the chain of events unfolded, or rather what happened to the gold at each stage of the process until the money was laundered – a huge sum went into the construction of the Docklands.”

The actor had the opportunity to meet his real-life counterpart Boyce for the series and said he was a fascinating person: “He’s a man in his eighties now, but very fit, very smart and we’ve had lunch together a couple of times just to talk things through.”

“I wanted to understand how he led his team and what tone and temperature he displayed as a team leader. He was an inspirational man to listen to. A real old-school cop who believes that the police should serve society and who was quite disappointed by some of his colleagues who were corrupt or turned a blind eye to things.

“He was a man of great principles and so it was a privilege to meet him and hear about his own experiences with the case.”

Read more: What we know about the second season of The Gold

The actor also reflected on how the British public’s opinion of the police had changed following the robbery, adding that he thought it was unfair to completely disregard their achievements afterward.

“It was a privilege to meet (Boyce) and hear about his own experiences in the case which cost the police, I forget, let’s say £50 million and there was a huge outcry about what a waste of police money,” he says.

“But of the £24 or £23 million of gold bars that were stolen initially, although they cost £50 million, they recovered £200 million of money that was laundered over the next ten years and they brought a lot of people to justice. So it’s a fascinating story and it continues.”

The BBC has not yet confirmed when the series will return, but Bonneville will once again be joined by Charlotte Spencer, Emun Elliott, Tom Cullen, Stefanie Martini and Sam Spruell in the new series.

The first season of The Gold is available to watch now on BBC iPlayer.