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98 free Famous Heists trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
11 free Famous Heists trivia questions with answers. Think you know about history's most notorious heists? Test your knowledge with our Famous Heists trivia quiz featuring 5 challenging questions about the world's greatest robberies and art thefts. From museum heists to bank robberies, discover how much you really know about these legendary crimes.
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Q 01Which country's central bank lost $81 million to hackers' fraudulent SWIFT transfers in February 2016?
Bangladesh
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.
Q 02What filled the 120 mail bags the Great Train Robbery gang carried off from the Royal Mail train in 1963?
Banknotes
Banknotes, mostly £1 and £5 notes in both the older white design and the newer blue one half its size, filled the 120 bags.
Q 03What was the approximate value of the haul taken in the Great Train Robbery?
£2.6 million
The police investigation put the figure at £2,595,997, while the press reported £2,631,784.
Q 04Which of these criminals was one of the 15-strong gang behind the 1963 Great Train Robbery?
Ronnie Biggs
Ronnie Biggs gained notoriety beyond the robbery for his subsequent escape from prison; the gang was predominantly from south London.
Q 05Near which type of structure did the Great Train Robbery take place?
A railway bridge
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.
Q 06Which French city's Société Générale vault did Albert Spaggiari's gang enter through the sewers in 1976?
Nice
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'.
Q 07At which airport did thieves in airline uniforms hijack a diamond shipment in February 2005?
Amsterdam Schiphol
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.
Q 08Which city's Diamond Centre did Leonardo Notarbartolo empty in February 2003, after renting an office above the vault?
Antwerp
Antwerp's vault fell after months of surveillance, including a supposedly routine visit to the vault itself.
Q 09Vincenzo Peruggia's 1911 theft is credited with making which painting the world's most famous?
Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa's global fame partly stems from the theft; Peruggia justified it on patriotic grounds, insisting the work belonged in Italy.
Q 10Which jeweller's Paris boutique lost €80 million to robbers, some dressed as women, in 2008?
Harry Winston
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.
Q 11Which Irish mansion housing the Beit collection was robbed of paintings in 1974 and 1986?
Russborough House
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.
Q 12The December 1978 Lufthansa heist, dramatised in Goodfellas, took place at which airport?
John F. Kennedy
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.
Q 13Who was the only person ever convicted for the Lufthansa heist?
Louis Werner
Q 21Until which year are the Baker Street robbery papers embargoed at the UK National Archives?
2071
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.
Q 22Which Kent town's Securitas cash depot was robbed of £53 million in February 2006?
Tonbridge
Tonbridge: the gang kidnapped the depot manager and his family, then loaded almost £53 million into a lorry on 22 February 2006.
Q 23Roughly how much cash did the Securitas depot robbers leave behind because they could not transport it?
£154 million
£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.
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.
Q 14What job did Allen Pace hold at Dunbar Armored when he masterminded its 1997 robbery?
Regional safety inspector
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.
Q 15How much gold bullion did the 1983 Brink's-Mat robbers find in the warehouse they raided?
Three tonnes
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.
Q 16After the Brink's-Mat robbery, a white-hot crucible was spotted in a garden hut near which city?
Bath
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.
Q 17The 2019 Green Vault burglary took place in a museum in which German city?
Dresden
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.
Q 18The men convicted of the Green Vault burglary belonged to which notorious Berlin crime family?
The Remmo clan
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.
Q 19The 1971 Baker Street bank robbery in London was inspired by which Sherlock Holmes story?
The Red-Headed League
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.
Q 20To dig into the Baker Street bank vault, the gang rented what kind of business two doors away?
A leather goods shop
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.
Q 24Which city's Northern Bank lost £26.5m in December 2004, one of the UK's biggest raids?
Belfast
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.
Q 25The 2005 tunnel burglary of a Banco Central vault took place in which Brazilian city?
Fortaleza
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.
Q 26How did Vincenzo Peruggia get the Mona Lisa out of the Louvre in 1911?
Wrapped in his work smock under his arm
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.
Q 27Vincenzo Peruggia was finally arrested in December 1913 in which Italian city?
Florence
Florence: Peruggia offered the painting to the Uffizi through dealer Alfredo Geri and was arrested at his Florence hotel in December 1913.
Q 28How were the two thieves who robbed Boston's Gardner Museum in 1990 disguised?
As police officers
As police officers, they talked their way in, tied up the guards, and spent 81 minutes inside.
Q 29Which Vermeer painting was among the works stolen from the Gardner Museum in 1990?
The Concert
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.
Q 30The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, stolen in the Gardner heist, is the only seascape by whom?
Rembrandt
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.