98 Fun Facts About Famous Heists

Which country's central bank lost $81 million to hackers' fraudulent SWIFT transfers in February 2016?

Bangladesh Bank's account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was drained of $81 million in February 2016; the money was laundered through Philippine casinos, and a spelling error blocked a further $20 million.

What filled the 120 mail bags the Great Train Robbery gang carried off from the Royal Mail train in 1963?

Banknotes, mostly £1 and £5 notes in both the older white design and the newer blue one half its size, filled the 120 bags.

What was the approximate value of the haul taken in the Great Train Robbery?

The police investigation put the figure at £2,595,997, while the press reported £2,631,784.

Which of these criminals was one of the 15-strong gang behind the 1963 Great Train Robbery?

Ronnie Biggs gained notoriety beyond the robbery for his subsequent escape from prison; the gang was predominantly from south London.

Near which type of structure did the Great Train Robbery take place?

The gang stopped the train at a tampered signal, then had it moved half a mile to Bridego Railway Bridge, where the mail bags were unloaded into a waiting truck.

Which French city's Société Générale vault did Albert Spaggiari's gang enter through the sewers in 1976?

Nice: over a weekend in July 1976 Spaggiari's team tunnelled from the city sewers into the Société Générale vault, emptied hundreds of safe-deposit boxes and left the words 'sans armes, ni haine, ni violence'.

At which airport did thieves in airline uniforms hijack a diamond shipment in February 2005?

Amsterdam Schiphol: in February 2005 men wearing KLM uniforms and driving a stolen KLM van seized an armoured truck's diamond cargo on the tarmac, one of the largest diamond thefts on record.

Which city's Diamond Centre did Leonardo Notarbartolo empty in February 2003, after renting an office above the vault?

Antwerp's vault fell after months of surveillance, including a supposedly routine visit to the vault itself.

Vincenzo Peruggia's 1911 theft is credited with making which painting the world's most famous?

Mona Lisa's global fame partly stems from the theft; Peruggia justified it on patriotic grounds, insisting the work belonged in Italy.

Which jeweller's Paris boutique lost €80 million to robbers, some dressed as women, in 2008?

Harry Winston's Avenue Montaigne store was raided in December 2008 by four armed men, some in wigs and women's clothing, who left with jewels valued at roughly €80 million.

Which Irish mansion housing the Beit collection was robbed of paintings in 1974 and 1986?

Russborough House in County Wicklow was raided by Rose Dugdale's IRA-linked gang in 1974 and by Martin Cahill's gang in 1986, when a Vermeer and a Goya were among 18 works taken.

The December 1978 Lufthansa heist, dramatised in Goodfellas, took place at which airport?

John F. Kennedy Airport: the gang drove into Lufthansa's cargo Building 261 at JFK before dawn on 11 December 1978 and left with cash and jewellery that had been flown in from West Germany.

Who was the only person ever convicted for the Lufthansa heist?

Louis Werner, a Lufthansa cargo supervisor who fed the gang the tip, was convicted in 1979; a 2015 trial of Vincent Asaro ended in acquittal.

What job did Allen Pace hold at Dunbar Armored when he masterminded its 1997 robbery?

Allen Pace was Dunbar's regional safety inspector, which let him photograph the Los Angeles depot and learn its routines; his crew loaded $18.9 million into a U-Haul in about 30 minutes in September 1997.

How much gold bullion did the 1983 Brink's-Mat robbers find in the warehouse they raided?

Three tonnes: the Brink's-Mat unit held 6,800 gold bars worth about £26 million on 26 November 1983, far more than the cash the gang had expected.

After the Brink's-Mat robbery, a white-hot crucible was spotted in a garden hut near which city?

Bath: the crucible belonged to John 'Goldfinger' Palmer, who smelted Brink's-Mat gold in a shed at his home near Bath; he was acquitted in 1987 after saying he did not know its origin.

The 2019 Green Vault burglary took place in a museum in which German city?

Dresden's Grünes Gewölbe in the Residenzschloss was hit on 25 November 2019; thieves cut the power, smashed a display case and took jewels valued at about €113 million, 31 of which were returned in December 2022.

The men convicted of the Green Vault burglary belonged to which notorious Berlin crime family?

The Remmo clan, an extended Berlin crime family, supplied the five men convicted in Dresden in May 2023 after a deal that saw much of the loot returned.

The 1971 Baker Street bank robbery in London was inspired by which Sherlock Holmes story?

The Red-Headed League: as in Conan Doyle's story, Anthony Gavin's crew tunnelled about 40 feet from a rented shop into the Lloyds Bank vault on Baker Street in September 1971.

To dig into the Baker Street bank vault, the gang rented what kind of business two doors away?

A leather goods shop called Le Sac, two doors from Lloyds Bank, was rented as the front; the gang dug beneath the Chicken Inn restaurant between them to reach the vault.

Until which year are the Baker Street robbery papers embargoed at the UK National Archives?

2071: the National Archives closed the robbery files for 100 years, which fuelled rumours of a D-Notice and of compromising royal photographs among the boxes' contents.

Which Kent town's Securitas cash depot was robbed of £53 million in February 2006?

Tonbridge: the gang kidnapped the depot manager and his family, then loaded almost £53 million into a lorry on 22 February 2006.

Roughly how much cash did the Securitas depot robbers leave behind because they could not transport it?

£154 million was left in the depot because the gang's lorry could hold no more; they escaped with almost £53 million, of which about £32 million remained unrecovered a decade later.

Which city's Northern Bank lost £26.5m in December 2004, one of the UK's biggest raids?

Belfast: the Northern Bank's city-centre cash centre was emptied on 20 December 2004 after two staff members' families were held hostage, a tiger-kidnap raid netting £26.5 million.

The 2005 tunnel burglary of a Banco Central vault took place in which Brazilian city?

Fortaleza: the gang rented a house posing as a landscaping firm and dug a 78-metre tunnel into the Banco Central vault over the weekend of 6–7 August 2005.

How did Vincenzo Peruggia get the Mona Lisa out of the Louvre in 1911?

He took the panel from its frame, wrapped it in his white work smock and carried it under his arm; a plumber, taking him for staff, unlocked the exit door.

Vincenzo Peruggia was finally arrested in December 1913 in which Italian city?

Florence: Peruggia offered the painting to the Uffizi through dealer Alfredo Geri and was arrested at his Florence hotel in December 1913.

How were the two thieves who robbed Boston's Gardner Museum in 1990 disguised?

As police officers, they talked their way in, tied up the guards, and spent 81 minutes inside.

Which Vermeer painting was among the works stolen from the Gardner Museum in 1990?

The Concert, a Vermeer of about 1664 showing three musicians, was among the 13 works taken on 18 March 1990 and has been valued at more than $200 million.

The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, stolen in the Gardner heist, is the only seascape by whom?

Rembrandt painted The Storm on the Sea of Galilee in 1633; it is his only known seascape and was cut from its frame by the Gardner thieves in March 1990.

In 2017 Boston's Gardner Museum doubled its reward for the stolen art to what sum?

$10 million: in 2017 the Gardner Museum doubled its standing $5 million reward for information leading to the return of the 13 works in good condition.

After the 1963 Great Train Robbery, the gang hid at which property 27 miles from the scene?

Leatherslade Farm, near Oakley in Buckinghamshire, was bought as the hideout; the gang left it in haste and the fingerprints police lifted there convicted most of them.

What item at the Great Train Robbers' hideout carried the fingerprints that led to their arrests?

A Monopoly board at Leatherslade Farm carried prints of several robbers, who had reportedly played the game with real banknotes; prints were also found on a ketchup bottle.

What nickname was given to the Great Train Robbers' never-identified inside informant?

The Ulsterman: the insider who tipped the gang to the cash-heavy train was never charged; in 2014 Gordon Goody named him as Belfast-born postal worker Patrick McKenna.

What sentence did the Great Train Robbery ringleaders get, though no firearm was used?

30 years: seven of the gang received 30-year terms at Aylesbury in April 1964, a severity judged to reflect the beating of driver Jack Mills with an iron bar.

The 1950 Great Brink's Robbery was solved only when Joseph 'Specs' O'Keefe testified days before what?

O'Keefe turned informer in January 1956, days before the six-year statute of limitations would have expired; eight of the gang were then sentenced to life.

The Great Brink's robbers wore chauffeur caps, pea coats and rubber masks of which comic hero?

Captain Marvel Halloween masks, chauffeur-style caps and navy pea coats disguised the seven men who walked into the Brink's building on Prince Street on 17 January 1950.

What brand of industrial drill did the Hatton Garden burglars use to bore through the vault wall in 2015?

A Hilti DD350 diamond core drill bored three overlapping holes through 50 cm of reinforced concrete to reach the vault.

Who was the alleged ringleader of the Hatton Garden burglary, jailed for six years and three months?

Reader was in his late seventies, the oldest of a gang the press dubbed the 'Diamond Wheezers'.

DNA on what item of discarded rubbish helped tie Leonardo Notarbartolo to the 2003 Antwerp diamond heist?

He and an accomplice had dumped the heist trash near the E19 motorway.

Notarbartolo's Antwerp crew belonged to a loose affiliation of Italian thieves known as what?

The Turin School, a loose network of Italian thieves also called the School of Turin, supplied Notarbartolo's crew; the gems, valued above $100 million, were not recovered.

Which artist's Nativity was stolen from Palermo's Oratory of San Lorenzo in October 1969?

Caravaggio's Nativity with St Francis and St Lawrence was cut from its frame in Palermo in October 1969; Mafia informants later gave conflicting accounts of its fate.

What vehicle did the Dome raiders use to smash into the diamond exhibition on 7 November 2000?

Wearing body armour and gas masks, they carried smoke bombs, sledgehammers and nail guns to break the security glass before Flying Squad officers pounced.

What clue betrayed the timing of the Millennium Dome raid to police watching the gang?

Every aborted attempt fell on a day of high tide, so detectives could predict when the speedboat getaway would be tried.

Which Italian, wanted for 50 armed robberies at home, led the 1987 Knightsbridge Security Deposit robbery?

Valerio Viccei, an Italian fugitive, led the July 1987 raid with inside help from the centre's debt-ridden managing director Parvez Latif; a bloody fingerprint on a safe-deposit box later identified him.

The Knightsbridge robbery leader was arrested when he returned to England to ship what abroad?

He had fled to Latin America but returned to arrange shipping his Ferrari Testarossa, and was arrested in August 1987; jailed for 22 years, he died in a 2000 shoot-out with Italian police while on day release.

The 1994 theft of The Scream from Oslo's National Gallery coincided with the opening of what event?

The Lillehammer Winter Olympics opened on 12 February 1994, the same morning the thieves took The Scream; a sting involving Scotland Yard recovered it in May.

Which other Munch painting was taken alongside The Scream by masked gunmen at the Munch Museum in 2004?

Madonna and The Scream were both snatched from the Munch Museum walls on 22 August 2004; a bystander photographed the robbers fleeing, and both works were recovered in August 2006.

How much ransom did the hijacker known as D. B. Cooper demand on Northwest Orient Flight 305 in 1971?

$200,000 in twenty-dollar bills, plus four parachutes, was handed over at Seattle; Cooper then had the plane take off again and jumped somewhere over southwest Washington.

In 1980, part of D. B. Cooper's ransom, $5,800, was found on the banks of which river?

The Columbia: in February 1980 a boy named Brian Ingram dug up three bundles of the marked twenties, $5,800 in all, on Tena Bar near Vancouver, Washington; the FBI suspended its investigation in 2016.

Who was the reputed mastermind of the 1978 Lufthansa heist, yet was never charged for it?

Burke is alleged to have ordered the murders of many co-conspirators to keep their shares and avoid being implicated. Robert De Niro's Jimmy Conway in Goodfellas is based on him.

Roughly how much cash and jewellery was taken in the 1978 Lufthansa heist?

$5,875,000: about $5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewellery, far above the $2 million the crew had planned around, making it the largest cash robbery in US history at the time.

The Gardner Museum thieves took a bronze eagle finial from a flag of whose Imperial Guard?

Napoleon: the finial topped a flag of his Imperial Guard; the thieves apparently tried to take the whole flag, gave up and unscrewed only the 10-inch bronze eagle.

Why do the empty frames of the stolen Gardner Museum paintings still hang on its walls?

The frames double as placeholders for the paintings' hoped-for return. The museum had no insurance policy, so auction houses helped fund its first $1 million reward.

The 1983 raid that netted 6,800 gold bars hit a trading estate beside which airport?

Heathrow: Unit 7 on the Heathrow International Trading Estate held gold belonging to Johnson Matthey Bankers that was due to fly to the Far East; most of it was melted down and never traced.

Kenneth Noye recast the 1983 bullion-raid gold, mixing in what to disguise its source?

Copper coins were melted in with the bullion to lower its purity and mask its origin; Noye got 14 years in 1986 for conspiracy to handle the gold, a year after being acquitted of murdering an undercover detective.

What finally exposed the 1997 Dunbar Armored gang two years after the robbery?

Eugene Hill paid a real-estate broker with banded bills, the broker went to police, and Hill confessed. Mastermind Allen Pace got 24 years.

Which 2016 comedy starring Zach Galifianakis dramatised the 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery?

Masterminds (2016) cast Galifianakis as David Ghantt, Kristen Wiig as Kelly Campbell and Owen Wilson as Steve Chambers, the accomplices whose spending spree exposed the real robbery.

Vault supervisor David Ghantt drove off with $17.3 million in October 1997 in which city?

Charlotte, North Carolina: Ghantt sent a trainee home early, loaded $17.3 million into a company van at the Loomis Fargo vault and fled to Mexico, leaving accomplices who promptly bought a mansion and a BMW.

Amil Dinsio said his 1972 Laguna Niguel bank burglary targeted whose campaign slush fund?

The crew blew through the roof of United California Bank and looted $9 million from safe-deposit boxes. They were caught after fingerprints turned up on dishes in a rented townhouse.

Which New York hotel's safe-deposit boxes did a tuxedo-wearing gang empty in January 1972?

The Pierre on Fifth Avenue: Bobby Comfort and Sammy Nalo's crew arrived in a limousine dressed in tuxedos on 2 January 1972, held the night staff for hours and emptied safe-deposit boxes worth millions.

The 1968 Tokyo 300 million yen robber stopped a bank car by posing as what?

Dressed as a motorcycle policeman, he stopped the bank car, said a bomb had been planted beneath it, lit a flare under the vehicle and drove off with the cash as the staff fled.

The 294 million yen taken in Tokyo in 1968 was bonus money for which company's workers?

Toshiba: the cash was the winter bonus for workers at its Fuchu factory, being driven there in the boot of a Nissan Cedric; the criminal statute of limitations ran out in 1975.

In the 1855 Great Gold Robbery, what did thieves pack into the boxes to match the weight?

Edward Agar weighed the gold bars on a portable scale mid-journey and swapped in the same weight of shot bought from the Shot Tower in Lambeth. The theft went unnoticed until Paris.

What happened to Thomas Blood after his 1671 attempt to steal England's Crown Jewels?

Blood insisted on answering only to Charles II, who asked 'What if I should give you your life?' The keeper he had beaten, Talbot Edwards, got less than £300 and was never paid in full.

The Just Judges panel, stolen in 1934, belongs to which famous work?

The Ghent Altarpiece by the van Eyck brothers lost its Just Judges panel from Saint Bavo's Cathedral in April 1934; a copy by restorer Jef Van der Veken has filled the gap since 1945.

Art thief Stéphane Breitwieser was finally caught in 2001 stealing what in Lucerne?

A 16th-century bugle from the Richard Wagner Museum in Lucerne: Breitwieser was arrested in November 2001 when he returned to the museum two days after a guard had spotted him taking it.

What did Breitwieser's mother do with much of his hoard of 239 stolen artworks?

Swiss police needed 19 days to get a search warrant for her house. She later served 18 months for destroying the works.

Two van Goghs stolen in 2002 surfaced in 2016 in a drug lord's villa in which country?

Italy: the Guardia di Finanza found View of the Sea at Scheveningen and Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen in a villa at Castellammare di Stabia, near Naples, tied to a Camorra trafficker.

Cellini's gold salt cellar, stolen in Vienna in 2003, was recovered in 2006 where?

Robert Mang led police to the Saliera in January 2006, buried in a lead box in a forest near Zwettl, Austria; he had surrendered after CCTV stills of him buying a mobile phone were published.

Le pigeon aux petits pois, taken from Paris's modern art museum in 2010, is by whom?

Picasso painted Le pigeon aux petits pois in 1911; it was one of five works, valued together at about €100 million, taken from the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in May 2010.

Three paintings stolen from Manchester's Whitworth gallery in 2003 turned up where?

A van Gogh, a Gauguin and a Picasso worth £4 million came with a note saying the theft was meant to expose poor security. They went back on display after minor repairs.

Thieves stole a Cézanne from Oxford's Ashmolean Museum under cover of what event?

During Oxford's millennium fireworks on 31 December 1999 the thieves climbed scaffolding on a neighbouring building, dropped through a skylight and took only View of Auvers-sur-Oise, suggesting a theft to order.

Cézanne's Boy in the Red Vest, stolen from the Bührle collection in 2008, turned up where?

Serbia: police recovered the Cézanne in Belgrade in April 2012, four years after the Zurich raid; the stolen Monet and van Gogh had been found within a week in a car at a nearby psychiatric clinic.

The two men behind Mexico City's 1985 anthropology museum heist were students of what?

Carlos Perches and Ramón Sardina were veterinary medicine students who had visited the museum about 50 times; they struck on Christmas morning 1985 while guards partied, and most of the 124 pieces were found in 1989.

The 1972 'Skylight Caper' art theft hit which Canadian city's museum of fine arts?

Montreal: three armed men dropped through a skylight of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts on 4 September 1972, its alarm disabled during roof repairs, and left with 18 paintings including a Rembrandt.

How did the looted Warka Vase return to the Iraq Museum in June 2003?

The 5,000-year-old vase had been wrenched from its mount, snapping at the base. It came back in 14 pieces in the boot of a red Toyota.

Who oversaw the removal of nearly $1 billion from the Central Bank of Iraq in March 2003?

Qusay Hussein arrived at the bank before dawn on 18 March 2003 with a handwritten note from his father and had about $920 million in cash loaded into trucks over several hours, two days before the invasion began.

Robbers at Brussels Airport in 2013 took diamonds off a Helvetic Airways jet bound where?

Zurich: the Helvetic Airways Fokker 100 was about to leave for Zurich on 18 February 2013 when eight gunmen dressed as police drove through a hole in the fence and took about $50 million in diamonds in minutes.

How did the two 2009 Graff Diamonds robbers in London alter their appearance?

A professional make-up artist spent four hours fitting them with latex prosthetics and wigs, believing it was for a music video; the £40 million haul was then Britain's biggest gem heist.

The Cannes hotel robbed of $136m in jewels in 2013 was a location in which Hitchcock film?

To Catch a Thief (1955) used the Carlton as Cary Grant and Grace Kelly's hotel; in July 2013 a lone gunman walked out of its Leviev diamond exhibition in daylight with jewels valued at $136 million.

The Pink Panthers jewel gang got their name after hiding a diamond where, echoing a film?

A £500,000 diamond from the 2003 Graff raid in London was found hidden in a jar of face cream, echoing a scene in The Return of the Pink Panther; most members were traced to the former Yugoslavia.

In 2008, Pink Panthers entered a Dubai jeweller by driving what through its window?

Two Audis were driven through the Graff store front in Dubai's Wafi Mall in April 2008; the gang grabbed watches and jewellery and was gone within minutes.

How did robbers reach the roof of a G4S cash depot in Stockholm in September 2009?

A stolen Bell JetRanger landed on the G4S roof in Västberga on 23 September 2009; fake bombs at the police helicopter hangar and caltrops on the roads kept pursuers away, and 39 million kronor vanished.

Roughly how much was taken from Brazil's Banco Central vault in the 2005 tunnel burglary?

Only R$20 million had been recovered by the end of that year. The suspected mastermind was later kidnapped and killed even after a ransom was paid.

Which group did PSNI chief Hugh Orde blame for the 2004 Northern Bank robbery?

The Provisional IRA: Chief Constable Hugh Orde said in January 2005 that the IRA was responsible, which Sinn Féin and the IRA denied; the bank reissued its notes because so many uncirculated bills were taken.

How did police first learn the 1971 Baker Street vault burglary was under way?

Robert Rowlands taped the chatter from his flat half a mile away; the first officer he called thought it was a prank. The press dubbed it 'the walkie-talkie job'.

What codename did the Flying Squad give its plan to foil the 2000 Dome diamond raid?

Operation Magician: the Flying Squad, tipped off months earlier, replaced the De Beers gems with replicas and deployed around 200 officers, some disguised as cleaners, to arrest the gang inside the Dome on 7 November 2000.

What sentence did Leonardo Notarbartolo get in 2005 for the 2003 Belgian diamond heist?

Ten years: Notarbartolo was paroled in 2009 but re-arrested at Charles de Gaulle airport in 2013 for failing to compensate the victims and sent back to serve the rest of his term.

D. B. Cooper parachuted from the aft stairs of which type of airliner in 1971?

A Boeing 727 of Northwest Orient, whose rear ventral airstair could be lowered in flight; after releasing the passengers in Seattle and refuelling, Cooper ordered a flight toward Mexico City and jumped over southwest Washington.

Lee Murray, alleged mastermind of the 2006 Securitas raid, fled to and was jailed where?

Morocco: Murray, a cage fighter with a Moroccan father, fled to Rabat, fought extradition as a Moroccan citizen and was instead tried there, receiving ten years in 2010, later raised to 25.

Which 2018 film starring Michael Caine dramatised the 2015 Easter vault burglary?

King of Thieves cast Tom Courtenay, Jim Broadbent, Michael Gambon and Ray Winstone alongside Caine; an ITV serial followed in 2019 after an 18-month legal delay.

'Basil', the 2015 London vault burglar arrested three years later, was identified as whom?

Michael Seed was picked up in Islington in March 2018 and got ten years in 2019; of the estimated £14 million taken, only about £4.3 million had been recovered by then.

Van Gogh's Poppy Flowers was stolen in 2010 from a museum in which city?

Cairo: Poppy Flowers, valued at around $50 million, was cut from its frame at the Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum in August 2010, when the museum's alarm system and most of its cameras were out of order.

The 100 kg 'Big Maple Leaf' coin stolen in Berlin in 2017 was issued by which country?

Canada: the Royal Canadian Mint struck the 100 kg, 99.999% pure coin in 2007 with a C$1 million face value; its gold was worth about US$4 million, and it was never found.

Leonardo's Madonna of the Yarnwinder was stolen in 2003 from a castle in which country?

Scotland: the painting was taken from Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfriesshire in August 2003 by two men posing as tourists, and recovered in a Glasgow law office in October 2007.

What prison sentence did Vincenzo Peruggia receive for the 1911 Louvre theft?

One year and 15 days: the Florence court partly accepted his patriotic motive, and on appeal the term was cut to seven months, already served, so he walked free in 1914.

What note did thieves leave after taking The Scream from Oslo's National Gallery in 1994?

'Thanks for the poor security' was the taunt; the gallery refused a $1 million ransom, and a sting with British police and the Getty Museum got the painting back undamaged that May.