From a notorious diamond theft to a brazen bank robbery, here are 7 most daring heists:
Number 7 Antwerp Diamond Heist On February 15 to 16, 2003, a crew lead by
Leonardo Notabartolo stole over $100 million worth of Diamonds, gold and jewellery from
the Antwerp World Diamond Center, in Belgium.
Notabartolo was the head of a network of thieves calling itself ‘The School of Turin’.
The vault that the crew hit had infrared heat detectors, a seismic detector, a magnetic
field, a Doppler radar and a lock with 100 million combinations.
Notabartolo rented an apartment in the diamond center, which provided a tenant ID card and
24-hour access to the building where the stones were kept.
He also gained access to a safe deposit box inside the vault, posing, for credibility,
as an Italian diamond merchant.
When the crew hit the vault, they forced open numerous safe deposit boxes and stole the
surveillance footage before making off with the goods.
The heist remains, to this day, one of the largest robberies in history and the stolen
diamonds were never recovered.
Notabartolo was connected to the robbery and arrested via DNA evidence from a partially
eaten salami sandwich found at the scene.
Number 6 Millennium Dome Raid The Millennium Dome raid took place during
a diamond exhibition in Greenwich, South East London.
The crew planned on stealing several precious stones that were on display and then to escape
on a speedboat via the Thames.
On November 7, 2000, four members of the gang entered the exhibition wearing gas masks and
full body armor.
They started throwing smoke bombs.
The crew used sledgehammers and a high-powered nail gun to try and break into the display
case where the precious stones were held.
The plan was working and, according to one of the robbers ‘I was twelve inches from
pay day.
It would have been a blinding Christmas.’
However, unaware to them, the authorities had been surveilling the crew’s moves for
some time.
Over two hundred officers were involved in what was called ‘Operation Magician’.
All of the Dome’s employees had been replaced by armed undercover officers.
The robbers and their getaway speedboat driver were arrested before they could make their
escape.
Had they succeeded, they would have made off with over $450 million-worth of precious stones.
Quiz Question Before we continue with our list of daring
heists, it’s time for our quiz question.
Which of these jewels was the Dome robbers’ main target?
Was it: The Millennium Star
The Hope Diamond The Black Orlov
The Cullinan Diamond Let us know what you think in the comment
section below and stay tuned to find out the right answer.
Number 5 Nice Bank Robbery Masterminded by Albert Spaggiari, this bank
robbery took France by storm, in 1976.
The safe at the Societe Generale bank in Nice was considered impenetrable, which is why
Spaggiari devised a plan to break into it from below.
He rented a safe deposit box and planted a loud alarm clock inside, to check for any
acoustic or seismic detection technology.
There weren’t any alarms protecting the vault, because there weren’t any access
points, beyond its thick doors.
For the next two months, Spaggiari and his crew dug a 26-foot tunnel from the sewers
to the vault floor.
During the long weekend of Bastille Day, on July 16, 1976, they broke into the vault itself.
They took hours opening more than 400 safe deposit boxes, in what was the largest bank
heist in history up to that point.
The crew reportedly sat down for a picnic lunch inside the vault, after welding its
doors shut from the inside.
Before they took off, they left a message on the walls of the vault, which read ‘without
weapons, hatred or violence’.
Spaggiari was caught but later escaped from the courtroom by jumping out the window as
a getaway motorcycle rider was waiting for him outside.
He was never brought to justice again and allegedly died of throat cancer in Italy,
in the summer of 1989.
None of the valuables he and his crew stole were ever recovered.
Number 4 Vincenzo Peruggia While Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is widely
considered to be priceless, it holds the world record for the highest known insurance valuation
in history.
In 1962 it was valued at $100 million, which, as of the making of this video, would be adjusted
to roughly $840 million.
This would make the theft of the Mona Lisa the most expensive heist of all time.
The man responsible was Vincenzo Peruggia.
In 1911, the former Louvre worker entered the museum disguised as an employee, wearing
a white smock.
He waited until the room where the painting hung was empty.
Then, Peruggia took the Mona Lisa off the wall and to a nearby staircase.
He removed the protective case and frame, wrapped the painting in his smock and tucked
it under his arm.
Peruggia left the building through the employees’ entrance, the same he way he’d come in.
He still had the painting in his Paris apartment when the police came to question him, but
they accepted his alibi.
Then, for two years he hid the Mona Lisa in his apartment in Florence, Italy.
Growing impatient, he contacted the director of the Uffizi Gallery, who subsequently authenticated
the painting.
He, along with another gallery owner then took the painting from Peruggia, for ‘safekeeping’,
and called the authorities.
Peruggia was arrested and the Mona Lisa had a celebrated return to the Louvre.
The headlines that the theft, and subsequent recovery had generated, only added to its
fame.
Peruggia argued that he’d stolen the renowned work so that it would be returned to its homeland,
after it had been stolen by Napoleon.
Despite his claim of patriotism, there’s some evidence that he expected a reward for
doing so.
Nevertheless, he was hailed as a great patriot in Italy and given a lenient sentence, of
which he only served seven months in jail.
Perhaps Peruggia didn’t know that the Mona Lisa had been initially given as a gift to
France’s King Francis I, by da Vinci himself, when he became a painter at his court.
Number 3 DB Cooper DB Cooper became a sort of folk hero in the
US and authored what’s possibly the most daring heist on our list.
The day before Thanksgiving, in 1971, a man in a suit bought a ticket on Northwest Orient
Airlines Flight 305, from Portland to Seattle.
He gave his name as Dan Cooper, a fake name, which the media would later misinterpret as
DB Cooper.
Shortly after the plane took off, the man gave one of the flight attendants a note saying
that he had a bomb in his briefcase.
Then he opened it, revealing a battery attached to numerous wires and red sticks.
DB Cooper demanded four parachutes as well a ransom of $200,000 in $20 bills.
The authorities complied when the plane landed in Seattle and Cooper released 36 passengers.
However, he forced a flight attendant, a flight engineer and two pilots to remain on the plane.
Copper ordered the pilots to take off with a course for New Mexico.
During the flight, he ordered the pilots to keep it under 10,000 feet and slower than
230 mph.
At around 8 PM, somewhere between Seattle and Reno, Cooper opened the rear stairs and
jumped out of the plane.
He was never seen again.
Cooper left behind only his tie, which, in the years that followed, the FBI tried to
match with the DNA of several suspects.
The identity of DB Cooper was never discovered.
Some say he didn’t survive the parachute jump, due to the strong winds, but his remains
were never found.
The FBI officially terminated its DB Cooper investigation in 2016.
Quiz Answer So, what was the robber’s most coveted stone?
As you probably guessed from its name, the exhibition’s main attraction was A, the
Millennium Star.
Considered one of the most perfect gems in the world, the flawless 203.4 carat diamond
was estimated at over $260 million.
Number 2 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Theft 13 works of art, by Rembrandt, Manet, Degas
and others, with a combined value of $500 million, were stolen on March 18, 1990 from
Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
It’s the largest-valued theft of private property in history.
‘The Concert’ by Vermeer, valued at $200 million was the most valuable stolen painting.
The works had been purchased by collector Isabella Stewart Gardner and left on permanent
display at the museum, along with the rest of her collection.
Around midnight, two men, who posed as police officers responding to a disturbance call,
were allowed entry into the museum by the security guards.
Once inside, they handcuffed the guards and began stealing artwork.
In a heist that lasted about 81 minutes, they made two trips to their getaway car before
disappearing.
Their last words to the guards were ‘You’ll be hearing from us in about a year’, but
nobody ever did.
No works have been recovered and no arrests have been made in the case, despite extensive
efforts by the FBI.
In homage to the stolen works, their empty frames still hang in the museum.
A reward of 10$ million was extended into 2018 for information leading to the recovery
of the artwork.
Experts were puzzled by the thieves’ choices of artwork, especially since more valuable
pieces were left untouched.
Number 1 Oak Bay Bank Robber In the 70s and 80s, Oak Bay was known as the
bank robbery capital of British Columbia.
The municipality had a modest population and Oak Bay Avenue had several banks on it, which
were often targeted by robbers.
While the situation has quietened down in recent years, occasional incidents seem to
reflect Oak Bay’s past tribulations.
Such was a case in 2015, when an unnamed 20-year-old man entered a TD Canada Trust branch, passed
the teller a note and made off with an undisclosed amount of cash.
He then drove off in a stolen 2013 Dodge Ram.
The police tracked the truck to the parking lot of a Wendy’s restaurant.
They attempted to arrest the driver but he backed up into a civilian vehicle, jumped
a curb and fled the scene.
The car was found about an hour later and the suspect was tracked down and arrested,
with the aid of a K9 officer.
Thanks for watching?
What other daring heists do you know?
Tell us about them in the comment section below!