But, as we shall see, they may have come dangerously close to success - something opponents of relaxed gaming laws will doubtless see as a portent for the future.

The story begins in an East End landmark, the Peacock Gym. This nondescript former canvas factory at the end of a scruffy street flanked by a flyover and breakers' yards, is revered in sporting circles far beyond the confines of east London.

The Peacock is the home of boxing legends. This was where world champions Prince Naseem and Lennox Lewis trained. Countless promising contenders have passed through the Peacock, some to achieve lasting fame. On the grim council estates of Canning Town, Poplar and Custom House, the Peacock transcends mere sport. It is a place of refuge and, for the more talented, a place of opportunity. In the East End, the fight game has always offered an escape route for determined youngsters trapped in poverty.

Many see the Peacock, with its cheerful cafe and games room, as a community resource. As well as boxing, it organises team sports and charity events.

Pensioners use it for ballroom dancing; City traders are among 8,000 members who work out in its well-equipped gym.

The Peacock is a registered charity and its supporters say it has raised more than Pounds 100,000 for good causes.

Pop stars, soap stars and the film director Guy Ritchie are among its fans, Ritchie used regulars of the gym as extras in his gangster movie, Snatch. Perhaps even he did not know just how inspired his casting had been.

The Peacock was started around 20 years ago by brothers Tony and Martin Bowers. Their father is George Bowers, one of the most successful trainers of young boxers Britain has seen. The family home was in nearby Varley Road, known locally as the Street of Champions. Justly so: eight national champions lived there.

THE Bowers boys lived by the code of many an East End street: family, fists and hooky. The family unit was sacrosanct and, even before they started school, they learned the streetfighter's creed. But it was the hooky - stolen gear - that was to determine their fate.

Paul "Pongo" Bowers, now 36, was barely out of his teens when, in 1988, he was convicted of handling stolen goods. A few years later he was convicted of burglary. His brother Tony, 46, was 22 when he was sentenced to seven years' jail for robbery. Soon after he came out he was charged with causing actual bodily harm.

Then the Bowers boys appeared to turn their backs on crime. They created the Peacock gym. It struggled at first, but as its reputation grew, so did the stature of Tony Bowers and his brothers.

"They got a lot of respect round here," a former neighbour said.

"They helped a lot of kids and even though they could be a bit lively, they never hurt their own."

Kate Kray, widow of Ronnie Kray, noted in her book Hard Bastards: "I'd heard about the Bowers many times ... they were a family not to mess with."

Some parallels with the Krays are inevitable; Reggie and Ronnie Kray were useful amateur boxers and supported young fighters. The East End was the crucible of their criminal endeavours and, like the Bowers brothers, they looked after "their own".

But the Peacock Gang, as Tony, Martin and Paul Bowers - and their accomplices - were known, operated on a different plane. The Krays terrorised businesses for protection money; they murdered. The Peacock Gang was far smarter - killing was not their style. When discussion about relaxed gaming laws began, the brothers instantly recognised an opening. Tony and Martin Bowers were directors of a property company, Abbeycastle, which owned a substantial site on Victoria Dock Road, close to the banks of the Thames and within easy reach of the City and Docklands. The site was occupied by a rundown pub and a few small garage businesses. Once cleared, it would provide enough space to house a substantial building.

An architectural design company based in Ongar, Essex, was engaged to draw up plans for a nine-storey hotel. The top two floors were designated as casino space. The drawings were submitted to Newham Council.

The Bowers knew their site was in an area identified on Newham's regeneration plan as a zone in which projects that provided employment would be encouraged. At an early estimate, the Bowers's hotel would provide at least 60 jobs.

As the plans went through Newham's planning system, and the Government moved closer to introducing its super-casino legislation, the Peacock Gang set about raising money. The finances of the casino deal have never been revealed, but company records show that the Bowers had an American partner.

He is listed as owning most of the shares in the company that owns the site chosen for the hotel casino. Tony and Martin Bowers are shown as owning only a nominal one share each.

This suggests that the money behind the deal was to come from the United States. But as the pace of the Peacock Gang's activities increased, it was clear that the Bowers were intent on raising large sums of cash.

One source said they were putting Pounds 4 million into the casino.

The three brothers and their lieutenants would meet in the boardroom above the gym in Caxton Street North, Canning Town, and discuss "opportunities".

Despite their standing in the local community and their certainty that the mixture of fear and respect they generated would protect them from betrayal, the police began to pick up signals.

IT was enough to get support at the highest level in Scotland Yard for a surveillance operation. From then on, when the gang met around the vast, polished mahogany table in the Peacock boardroom - surrounded by boxing portraits and paraphernalia including the shorts worn by Frank Bruno when he fought Mike Tyson - they were no longer alone. The place was bugged.

The police are unlikely to disclose precisely how they did it, but soon they began to perceive a pattern. The gang was targeting high- value goods being shipped through docks. In November 2002, electrical goods worth Pounds 83,000 were stolen from Thamesport in Kent. Shortly afterwards, police secretly filmed Paul Bowers unloading crates filled with top-quality food blenders into the Peacock Gang's lockup. The blenders were destined for the East End Christmas hooky market.

A few weeks later, the gang struck at Grangemouth docks in Scotland. An articulated trailer filled with cases of Absolut vodka - worth an estimated Pounds 500,000 - was stolen in a slick operation that was to become recognised as the Peacock Gang's modus operandi.

Two men presented identification and paperwork that persuaded security guards they were legitimately picking up the consignment of vodka.

The theft was only discovered when the real owners arrived.

Detective Inspector Gary Kibbey, who headed the operation to break the Peacock Gang, knew he was dealing with very clever crooks. The Bowersbrothers had a reputation for being exceptionally tough and, when circumstances demanded, terrifyingly violent. But the gang never used force and, remarkably in today's criminal climate, they never used guns.

Rather, they relied on skilfully acquired inside information and audacity.

Even knowing all this, DI Kibbey could hardly have foreseen the breathtaking cheek of their next heist.

In some of the gangster haunts of the East End, they still talk with awe about the Peacock Gang's last job.

The view down here is that it was basically a "victimless crime", and the brothers deserved to get away with it. Needless to say, DI Kibbey and his squad did not see it that way. They prepared accordingly.