5
minute read
There is something delicious about a heist, especially a brilliant caper plotted by a ‘mastermind’ and featuring a crew of shady criminals plotting an impossible break-in.
Authentic ‘jobs’ can be just as gratifying as their fictional Hollywood counterparts - packed with plot twists, backstabbing and drama.
Pull up a chair as SPYSCAPE shares the best-laid plans of vice and men.
Belgium’s diamond ‘heist of the century’
The Antwerp World Diamond Center robbery is one of the most elaborate heists in history, a break-in at a vault two floors underground protected by no fewer than 10 layers of security. Leonardo Notarbartolo disguised himself as a diamond merchant and moved into an apartment next to the center in 2000. In 2003, Notarbartolo ‘s crew stole diamonds and gold worth $100m without triggering any of the 63 security cameras. Notarbartolo was eventually linked to the crime by roadside trash and DNA found on a sandwich. He was sentenced, aged 51, to 10 years in prison. Many of the jewels were never found.
California dreaming
The Dunbar robbery seemed like the perfect crime. The gang had blueprints, inside information - even a key. One evening in 1997 six men attended a party in Long Beach, California. With their alibis established, the men slipped into black clothing and masks. Their rented van headed to the Los Angeles Dunbar Armored truck depot. They opened the depot’s side door with the key and ambushed night shift guards as they dropped by the cafeteria on breaks. The men timed the security cameras to avoid detection and loaded the van with $19m in cash. The thieves laundered the money through property deals but were eventually thwarted by a schoolboy error: one of the men handed a real estate agent a wad of cash wrapped with a Dunbar seal. Allen Pace, an ex-Dunbar guard, was sentenced to 24 years in prison. About $10m is still missing.
The robbery of the millennium
London celebrated the turn of the century with fireworks and a diamond display at its new Millennium Dome exhibition center on the Thames River. The centerpiece was the Millennium Star, a stunning 203-carat diamond. It was not altogether surprising then, when a gang plotted a smash-and-grab. The plan was to crash into the Dome with a bulldozer, take a sledgehammer to cases filled with jewels then escape by speedboat - all in broad daylight. Scotland Yard was tipped off, but didn’t know when. So 200 officers posed as staff and cleaners with their guns hidden in garbage bags. Dozens more lingered around the river. When the bulldozer finally crashed into the Dome, police arrested most of the gang on the spot. Two were nabbed on the river and several more at a safe house. The media, who’d berated the Dome for being nothing more than a government-built white elephant, admitted the center had finally lived up to its self-styled billing, providing ‘one amazing day’.
The 2008 Harry Winston heist in Paris was ‘le casse du siècle’
Two Harry Winston thefts in Paris are among the most lucrative robberies in history. In 2007, four men dressed as painters stole $37m in jewels in a daylight heist. A year later in 2008, four men entered the same jewelry shop. Three of the men - referred to in the media as ‘The Pink Panthers’ - wore wigs and dresses. Within 20 minutes, they’d stolen 104 watches and 297 pieces of jewelry valued at $73m. Eight men were eventually convicted, among them a Harry Winston security guard, Mouloud Djennad. He’d locked up the evening before the first robbery (when the painters were let in) and - security camera footage showed - moved around freely during the 2008 robbery instead of contacting police.
Revenge of the Loomis Fargo slave-wage worker
Philip Noel Johnson drove a Loomis Fargo armored car for 10 years, each day thinking up ways to leave his $7 an hour job. By 1997, the 33-year-old had driven straight into the history books. Instead of spending a night in front of the TV, Johnson handcuffed one of his coworkers, left him in the bedroom closet of Johnson’s Jacksonville, Florida home and put a jug of water and snacks nearby. Jackson left another co-worker handcuffed to a small tree in nearby North Carolina, and set off for Mexico. He’d been planning the heist for five years, had fake IDs and had learned Spanish. The only problem was that the truckload of cash was impossible to carry, so Johnson stashed most of it in North Carolina. Five months later, when Johnson tried to re-enter America by bus, his nervousness aroused the suspicion of a US border guard. She discovered he had IDs with multiple aliases. Of the $18.8m Johnson stole - all but $186,000 was recovered.
The ‘Diamond Wheelers’ of Hatton Garden
Britain’s 2015 Hatton Garden heist was legendary - a job so audacious it was turned into several movies including The King of Thieves. A gang - known as the ‘diamond wheezers’ due to their elderly age - broke into a safe deposit company and drilled through the 50 cm (20 inch) thick walls with an industrial power drill to bypass the main vault door. Within a month of the heist, Scotland Yard had arrested Brian Reader, 76, known as ‘The Master’, who’d previously been jailed for the Brinks-Mat robbery (see below). Seven men are believed to have stolen cash and jewelry worth $20m. Only $3m was ever recovered.
