there's an old adage that says crime doesn't pay unfortunately a lot of criminals steal things to
make money precisely to ensure that crime does pay now for some criminals this doesn't pan
out at all but for others it actually works out much better than you'd think sometimes
the difference between crime failing and crime paying is just how brazen the thief involved is
number 10. stefan brightvi sir if the media starts calling you the world's greatest art thief then it
seems likely you met the bar for being brazen when it comes to your crimes stefan breitfeiser
is the sort of thief that if you were a character in a movie you're dismissed as being unrealistic
that's because this is a man who robbed over 200 museums and managed to pull in a collection of art
worth 1.4 billion dollars bride vicer is almost too suave to be believed he would rob museums in
broad daylight with guards in the room while he did it he had a whole system down for how
to get away with his crimes in a way that no one would ever suspect or even notice the bridevisor
method was to arrive at lunchtime the museum would have fewer guests and the security staff would be
rotating because many of them would be going to eat he dressed like an affluent guy and carried a
swiss army knife with him he would case the museum to look for whether or not cameras aren't real
or to see if the guards were patrolling he'd use audio cues to let him know if someone was coming
like a creek in the floor or an accomplice who could cough to alert him to someone's presence
his method of stealing paintings was bafflingly simple when no one was looking he would simply
work the frame off the artwork or he would cut it out of its frame roll it and stash it in his
jacket and then walk out of the museum like any other patron the most valuable painting he stole
was worth nearly five million dollars symbol of cleaves by lucas cranach the younger he would
steal small statues and other artworks as well by simply slipping them down his pants part of the
troubles with catching bright visor was the fact that he wasn't trying to sell any of the paintings
afterward he was just an avid art lover and wanted to have an amazing collection he was only caught
when he returned to a museum shortly after robbing it and was recognized by a guard who had seen him
previously 9. john dillinger john dillinger is one of the most famous criminals in american
history in the early 1930s he became something of a legend for his string of high-profile bank
robberies it's what led him to be a name that is still recognized by people today and although the
number of crimes he committed has been surpassed he still holds that legendary status of an outlaw
like billy the kid or al capone dillinger's first attempt at robbery came in 1924 when he tried to
hold up a grocer he was caught and sent to prison while incarcerated he actually perfected the craft
of robbing banks thanks to the influence of fellow inmates who had more experience than he did when
he was paroled in 1933 he went out and robbed five banks in four months dillinger was actually
caught after this but some friends from prison helped him escape after that he and his gang went
on a robbery tour of america making their way from indiana down to florida and then arizona
after being caught and sent to jail again he once again proved his mettle by breaking a house this
is one of the most famous prison breaks in history and involved dillinger carving a fake pistol out
of wood and using shoe polish to make it look like metal once again dillinger was on the run
with a new gang he managed to rob a total of 24 banks before the fbi finally caught up with him
a sting operation was set up and dillinger was shot after leaving a movie theater
number 8. doris payne doris payne may look like a nice old grandma and that's kind of the point when
you set out to become an international jewelsee for some repute you need to use all the tricks you
have up your sleeve to get away with your crimes payne was born in slab fork west virginia in 1930
for the past six decades she's gone out of her way to steal just about any piece of jewelry that she
could find that wasn't nailed down that includes a diamond ring in monte carlo that was worth five
hundred thousand dollars a twenty two thousand dollar diamond ring in california a thirty three
thousand 000 ring in north carolina and even 86 worth of merchandise from a walmart in atlanta
no crime was too big or too small to get her attention it's believed that she used at least
22 aliases over a long career she's been arrested over 20 times in countries such as greece britain
switzerland france and of course the united states more than once she's claimed that she
was too ill for trial and her age and fragility has led to judges going easy on her letting her
serve our sentences at home with ankle monitors which she has actually committed crimes while
wearing 7. carl gargasian while don dillinger had carved quite a niche for himself as a bank
robber the man was no carl gargasian gygasian committed his first robbery at the age of 15
and got shot for his effort he seemed to go on the straight and narrow after that by heading
to university and getting a degree joining the army and even becoming part of the special forces
afterwards he returned to school got a master's degree and even did a bit of doctoral work
sounds like an upstanding citizen despite all the efforts he put into bettering himself
it seems as though he put just as much effort into plotting bank robberies he was a detail-oriented
guy and planned them out nearly perfectly a bit of research on his part led him to the conclusion
that the best time to rob a bank was on a friday night just before the bank closed that's what
earned him the nickname the friday night bank robber because he was a smart guy gauguin did a
ton of research before he committed any crimes he studied the area around every bank for days at a
time before acting on anything he needed to have a nearby wooded area that he'd escape into and
a road that led into a freeway on the other side of the wooded area he'd find out exactly how many
employees were going to be in the bank at the time that he was going to be there and even what their
day-to-day habits were that included whether or not they drove themselves to work or if somebody
came to pick them up after all the prep work the plan was pretty simple two minutes before the bank
closed he would enter wearing a disguise he would be covered head to toe in baggy clothes so you
couldn't even tell what race he was or his weight he would even crouch walk into bank so that no
one could hazard a guess at what his actual height was he never had a getaway car waiting instead he
would run into the forest that he knew was nearby he'd hide the money in a pre-selected place and
then got on a bike that had left as his getaway vehicle from there he would head to a van that had
stashed a good distance away this method allowed him to rob nearly 50 banks he was only caught when
some teenagers stumbled upon a stash of survival gear and paraphernalia that had left hidden in the
woods law enforcement was able to piece together who he was based on all of the clues they found
number 6. bill mason the term cab burglar doesn't get used very much these days and even when it
does you probably think of catwoman more than anything else but bill mason was the definition
of a cat burglar he used to steal valuables from celebrities including robert goulet phyllis diller
and armand hammer great grandfather of army hammer according to mason he made off with 35 million
worth of loot in his life and he managed to stay out of jail except for a three-year stint once
the statute of annotations ran out on his crimes he opted to write a book to tell his story which
included how he stole an olympic gold medal from johnny weissmuller and then gave it back because
he felt bad since the guy worked hard to get it 5. natwalal the one-man-indian crime spree known
as natwarlal had a houdini-like ability to escape from just about anywhere 10 times he had been sent
to prison and 10 times he had managed to escape he's risen to the level a folk hero in india so
much so that it's impossible to tell how much of his life is fact and how much is fiction there
are numerous stories about his upbringing and family backgrounds with no way to verify any of
them his life of crime was as a con man he was adept at forging signatures and manipulating
people to get what he wanted at one point he even managed to bribe one of his jailers with a box of
money to set him free after he left prison the jailer discovered that not only was the box of
money not legitimate but it burst into flames as well so what got him sent away his incredible
ability to dupe people into believing just about anything word is that he sold the taj mahal more
than once also the parliament house also the red fort and several other major indian landmarks that
anyone listening to him should have known he didn't own but that's how good a con man he was
when not selling landmarks he was conning store owners bankers jewelers and more out of money and
valuables interestingly enough it's also said that he would give back a lot of the valuables he stole
to the less fortunate in his neighborhood although he had been convicted of literally dozens of
crimes he still managed to find ways to skirt the law in 1956 a flood in one town washed away his
entire police record every time he was caught he somehow managed to manipulate one or more guards
into believing that he would pay the money if they helped him out every single time they fell for it
even natwaral's death is shrouded a mystery some sources say that he died in 1996 others say it was
2009. number four charles sabraj charles sabraj was not just a bold thief and con man he was also
a serial killer he started committing crimes in his teens and discovered when he was in jail that
he had a knack for manipulating others he was able to charm the guards and other prison officials to
grant him special favors once out on parole his criminal lifestyle escalated he had a series of
relationships with high-profile socialites in paris but continued stealing at the same time
after serving time for stealing a car he left france for asia and spent his time robbing
tourists he headed up a car theftering in india and took up smuggling as well
in kabul he continued dropping tourists before heading on the run throughout the middle east
at one point even swapped identities with his younger brother letting his brother take the fall
for him and getting an 18-year prison sentence for his troubles by the mid-1970s he had committed his
first murder and was actually leading something of a small cult of followers that he had
charmed into doing pretty much whatever he said he would poison people unbeknownst to them and then
show up as the hero to nurse them back to health gaining their loyalty in the process
some other people didn't survive though number three veyran thomas bayern thomas earned the
nickname spider-man after committing numerous burglaries but it was an avengers level art
heist back in 2010 that made him famous he managed to steal five paintings with a combined value of
110 million dollars that included a picasso and a matisse in his youth thomas prowled the pearl of
chase the famous french cemetery where luminaries like oscar wilde and jim morrison are interred
before parkour was the thing thomas was scaling the massive mausoleums and tombstones just for fun
it was the skills he honed doing this that he would later use to climb up the walls of
apartment buildings and break into homes to steal valuables he claims to have stolen gold
buttons from the egyptian royal family at one point some of his crimes were full-fledged mr
and impossible style endeavours in the year 2000 he fired a crossbow with a rope on the end of it
to an apartment building and used carabiners to climb up when he stole two renoirs and several
other important art pieces worth over a million euros number two british bank heist when it comes
to epic heists in history you'd be hard-pressed to find one more impressive than the british bank of
the middle east in 1976 as the lebanese civil war was bearing down on its first anniversary
some enterprising thieves noticed that the british bag shared a wall with a catholic church
as the instability of the country was causing turmoil the thieves broke through the wall and
then into the steel reinforced walls inside the bank the sounds of the civil war drowned out any
noise that they were making so nobody noticed inside the bank's vault was cash jewelry and
solid gold bars 300 million dollars was taken adjusted for inflation there's over 2 billion
and not a single red cent was ever recovered none of the criminals were ever identified there were
no leads and the thieves got away scot-free with what the guinness book of world records describes
as the biggest bank robbery in history number 1. dar es salaam robbery when it comes to bold
moves the thieves who stole nearly 300 million dollars from a bank in baghdad in 2007 really take
the cake the thieves in this case were the three guards whose job it was to guard the money in the
first place as part of their job they were meant to spend the night in the bank it was expected
that they would actually sleep there presumably in shifts instead when the employees showed up in the
morning the doors were open the guards were gone and so was all the money no one has ever been able
to explain why the bank had 282 million dollars in american currency on hand at the time but it
likely had something to do with the precarious financial infrastructure in iraq at the time the
country was in utter chaos and the word is that 18 people in the city had been murdered on the same
day police were pushed to their limit and even stealing a huge sum of money could have easily
gone unnoticed since the robbery neither the money nor the criminals have been heard from so i really
hope you enjoyed this video if you did and you're looking for more content on brazen heists and true
crime then i have to recommend to you my true crime podcast the casual criminalist it's both a
traditional audio podcast and it's also a youtube channel so you've got multiple ways to listen
fantastic check it out using the links in the description box below and thank you for watching