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Most Impressive Heists of All Time · Be Amazed

0:00
[SPEAKER_00]: crime never pays, at least that's how the old saying goes, but is it actually true?
0:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, if you're one of the belligerent burglars or bank robbers we're covering today, it definitely does pay a lot.
0:13
[SPEAKER_00]: They're rousing rustles have raked in millions, if not billions of dollars, and while I don't condone how they did it, you got to put respect on the name.
0:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Stay alert detectives, these guys could be armed and are definitely dangerous.
0:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's some breaking news.
0:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Five men have taken hostages at the Banco Rio in Buenos Aires, police have established a perimeter around the building and are communicating with one of the burglars.
0:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Strangely, the gang has been heard singing happy birthday to one of the hostages and requesting police send them pizza.
0:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep, in 2006 a mind-boggling stand-off went down in Buenos Aires.
1:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Five armed men in mass marched in through the bank doors and brought daylight.
1:08
[SPEAKER_00]: In the ensuing hours, police officers were taunted with a phone call requesting pizza, and the sound of joyous, happy birthdays.
1:15
[SPEAKER_00]: However, when special forces tentatively entered the building, the robbers were gone.
1:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Even more weirdly, nobody had seen them leave.
1:23
[SPEAKER_00]: The only signs a robbery had even taken place where 143 busted open safety deposit boxes, a jackhammer, a neat row of fake guns, and a note saying, in a neighborhood of rich people, without weapons or grudges, it's just money, not love.
1:39
[SPEAKER_00]: whoever perpetrated this must have been a master criminal, right?
1:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, not quite.
1:44
[SPEAKER_00]: The master genius behind it all was one Fernando Arajo, and he was, well, kind of a bump.
1:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Following a recent heartbreak Arajo was coasting through life.
1:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Then one day possessed by a stroke of genius he conceptualized pulling off the perfect bank robbery.
2:00
[SPEAKER_00]: As we all do after getting dumped, but Arajo really thought he was on to something.
2:05
[SPEAKER_00]: He recruited his good friend Sebastian Garcia Bolster, a hobbyist engineer to help him hash out some of the details.
2:12
[SPEAKER_00]: First off, there was a sophisticated alarm system protecting the bank.
2:16
[SPEAKER_00]: With no conceivable way to disable it, a Rauho decided that the robbery had to occur during the day when the bank was open and the alarm disabled.
2:25
[SPEAKER_00]: That's when a Rauho had his craziest idea.
2:27
[SPEAKER_00]: What if you could rob a bank and never leave?
2:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Jeez!
2:31
[SPEAKER_00]: What a whack job!
2:32
[SPEAKER_00]: However, there was something to allow Ho's crazy plan.
2:36
[SPEAKER_00]: See Buenos Aires is built above a complex network of storm sewers.
2:40
[SPEAKER_00]: For months prior to the highest bolster had been driving to Peru Beach, where one of the waterlog tunnels emptied into the Rio de La Plata.
2:48
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd then slosh all the way through it to a manhole cover near the bank.
2:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Now after performing some complex calculations to establish the correct angle of attack, bolster gradually chipped away through the rock towards the bank.
3:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Right until there was only a sliver of it left, so Bankstaff wouldn't notice, but it would be easy to finish the job when the time came, so when a Raoho said they'd never leave, he just meant they'd never be seen leaving.
3:13
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what the tunnel was for.
3:14
[SPEAKER_00]: This whole hostage debacle upstairs was merely a distraction from the real robbery going on downstairs.
3:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, that's pretty genius.
3:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Bulster's final task was figuring out how to get into the safety deposit boxes.
3:27
[SPEAKER_00]: this was easy.
3:29
[SPEAKER_00]: He went to a neighboring branch of the bank and rented out us safety deposit box, noted the brand and then bought test boxes from the manufacturer.
3:37
[SPEAKER_00]: After some testing he found out the most efficient way of breaking into the boxes was with a jackhammer.
3:42
[SPEAKER_00]: But they're cumbersome.
3:44
[SPEAKER_00]: So bolster designed his own which could be assembled and disassembled quickly for ease of transportation.
3:49
[SPEAKER_00]: With that everything was set for the big day.
3:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Araoho rounded up a gang of crooks to conduct the fake robbery upstairs complete with toy guns.
3:57
[SPEAKER_00]: After they entered the bank, one of the robbers ventured into the basement and broke through the last remaining section of the wall to let bolster in and start the real robbery.
4:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Once bolster was inside, Araojo started his stopwatch.
4:10
[SPEAKER_00]: He knew the standoff with the police outside wouldn't last forever, so he gave them two hours to smash and grab as much as they could.
4:17
[SPEAKER_00]: All the while the robbers kept the police and hostages distracted upstairs.
4:22
[SPEAKER_00]: It took 20 minutes for bolster to assemble the jackhammer and get to work, a row hoe and another robber stood nearby, stuffing cash and other valuables into the bags.
4:31
[SPEAKER_00]: When the two-hour timer went off, one of the burglars placed the pizza call.
4:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Immediately the gang started pouring bleach all over the basement to destroy any DNA, then scattered around human hair they'd acquired from a nearby barber shop.
4:44
[SPEAKER_00]: That way, if anyone left any traces, it would be near impossible to distinguish it, that's genius.
4:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, the men cleared any evidence of the wall breach, ducked into the tunnel, and heaved a heavy cabinet over the hole.
4:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyone who entered the room would have no idea this was where the burglars had entered.
5:02
[SPEAKER_00]: The gang then sailed 10 blocks on inflatable dingies they'd left in the tunnel earlier to a spot below where they'd parked a getaway van.
5:11
[SPEAKER_00]: They scurried up a ladder, bringing the pilfered goods with them, then removed the ladder, leaving no sign of their escape.
5:18
[SPEAKER_00]: By the time Special Forces entered the bank and found the hostages, the gang was watching it live on TV, while counting cash and eating pizza.
5:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Sheesh.
5:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Now time for the golden question.
5:31
[SPEAKER_00]: How much mula are we talking?
5:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Well estimates put it in the region of an eye-watering $20 million in cash and valuables.
5:41
[SPEAKER_00]: not a bad haul, right?
5:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Indeed reporters were still talking about it for weeks, dubbing it the crime of the century.
5:49
[SPEAKER_00]: The identity of the thieves became a matter of mass speculation, who'd pulled off this perfect crime?
5:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Hold on, if this really was the perfect crime, then how come we know about it?
6:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Who snitched?
6:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, one of the robbers Beto Delatoro was out enjoying a romantic evening with his girlfriend when the police pulled him over and swamped his car.
6:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Turns out Beto had a wife at home who wasn't so happy with his no-good cheat-nass.
6:16
[SPEAKER_00]: In a spit of rage, she'd rat it on Beto about the robbery and was able to ID the others too because she'd seen them scheming in her garage.
6:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Yikes.
6:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Hell really have no fury like a woman's scorn.
6:29
[SPEAKER_00]: If Beto had just kept it in his pants, we'd still be none the wiser.
6:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Speaking of Rating, if you're enjoying this episode, do us a solid and hit follow wherever you listen.
6:41
[SPEAKER_00]: That way, you won't miss the next one, and let us know in the comments if the platform allows it.
6:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Alright, back to the crimes.
6:48
[SPEAKER_00]: If I asked you what an average robber looked like, what would you say?
6:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Big tough guy?
6:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Mask?
6:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Strippy shirt?
6:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, you probably wouldn't describe the hat and garden robbers.
7:00
[SPEAKER_00]: In 2015, this group of Reffians broke into the Hatten Garden safety deposit box facility in London, and made off with $17 million worth of jewelry and cash.
7:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Yikes!
7:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Except these weren't your usual band of crooks.
7:15
[SPEAKER_00]: See, Mr. Strong Ginger and Montana and the gent, the tall man and the old man were a gang of pensioners.
7:23
[SPEAKER_00]: What?
7:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, the youngest member was a sprightly 48, so not that old, but the leader and oldest member Brian Reader was 76. Who said crime was a young man's game?
7:36
[SPEAKER_00]: But these weren't your average pensioners, each of them was as long in the crime game as they were in the tooth.
7:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Their master plan involved striking at night, first thieves had to get through two security doors, one of which was protected by a four-digit pin.
7:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether the thieves knew the code or found a way to Jimmy the Lock, we don't know.
7:58
[SPEAKER_00]: There was no sign of forced entry though, so it seems one of them had prior access.
8:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Once inside some members moved the elevator car up to the second floor before disabling it.
8:08
[SPEAKER_00]: This opened the way for one of our acrobatic ancients to ab-sale down to the basement where the vault was.
8:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Once they'd reached their destination, they pulled open the elevator shutters and entered.
8:20
[SPEAKER_00]: To allow access from the courtyard where the rest of the gang was waiting with heavy tools, they simply slid two bolts open on the basement door.
8:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Now there was only one obstacle in the way, the vault door itself.
8:34
[SPEAKER_00]: No problem.
8:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Rather than fiddling about with it, the gang got to work drilling a hole through the 20 inches of concrete wall next to it.
8:43
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a metal cabinet on the other side of the hole, though, blocking their access.
8:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, no problem.
8:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Using a hydraulic battering ram, they knocked it over, clearing the way to climb inside.
8:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Then they smashed the locks on 73 of the 999 safety deposit boxes and snatched the heaps of jewelry and precious stones within.
9:06
[SPEAKER_00]: The goods were loaded into wheelable trash cans and carried back out towards the fire escape where a white van was waiting.
9:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally they hauled their heavy $17 million load into the back, and
9:17
[SPEAKER_00]: drove off as the sun was coming up, all without having to harm a single person.
9:23
[SPEAKER_00]: How awesome!
9:24
[SPEAKER_00]: So, how'd gummy-gang get busted?
9:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Did they leave empty butter-scotch wrappers at the scene?
9:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the answer might be even sillier than that.
9:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of the crooks had been captured on CCTV, arriving in style inside a white Mercedes E-200 with a black roof and black alloy wheels.
9:42
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're thinking, gee, that's a distinctive looking car.
9:48
[SPEAKER_00]: After a quick number plate scan, the police tracked the car down to one John Kelly Collins.
9:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Police bugged Kenny's car and eaves dropped on the gang bragging about their ill-gotten gains.
9:59
[SPEAKER_00]: All members pled guilty and got sentences, but only $5.25 million of the pilfered goods was ever recovered.
10:09
[SPEAKER_00]: As for the rest, I can't disclose.
10:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Haven't you ever heard snitches get stitches?
10:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So we've covered the old fashioned smash and grab Hollywood style shakedowns, but how about something a little more sophisticated?
10:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Well in 2016 Bangladesh's National Bank was the target of a billion dollar bus stop, without anyone ever setting foot in the building.
10:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Huh?
10:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
10:33
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, the perpetrators weren't even within 1,000 miles of Bangladesh.
10:38
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't need to be.
10:39
[SPEAKER_00]: They were computer hackers.
10:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Access to the bank's central computer network had been gained a year prior.
10:46
[SPEAKER_00]: An innocuous email from a job-seeker named Racell Alam appeared in the inbox of one of the employees, only Racell Alam didn't exist.
10:55
[SPEAKER_00]: His resume was a sophisticated virus that kicked down the virtual doors into the mainframe.
11:01
[SPEAKER_00]: But the bank didn't know any of the wiser.
11:04
[SPEAKER_00]: The first sign that something was wrong happened on the morning of Friday 5th February.
11:09
[SPEAKER_00]: A printer on the 10th floor of the main building in DACA had malfunctioned, whatever computer issues happened to everyone.
11:16
[SPEAKER_00]: However this wasn't any old printer, it had the very important task of printing out records of multi-million dollar transactions in and out of the bank.
11:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Staff managed to get it fixed by Saturday, but upon restarting it began spitting out urgent
11:34
[SPEAKER_00]: See Bangladesh held most of their money in a US dollar account with the federal reserve bank for safekeeping.
11:40
[SPEAKER_00]: This printer was suddenly turning out urgent messages from the fed saying they'd received instruction to drain the entire account, close to a billion dollars.
11:50
[SPEAKER_00]: The hack had started days before, at 8 p.m. on Thursday night Bangladesh time.
11:56
[SPEAKER_00]: This was Thursday morning in New York giving the fed plenty of time to carry out the request while Bangladesh
12:04
[SPEAKER_00]: What's more, Bangladesh's weekend runs Friday to Saturday, unlike New York's which runs Saturday to Sunday.
12:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So by the time the few staff that were on duty noticed anything was wrong in Bangladesh, it was the weekend in New York.
12:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Plus, the following Monday was a national holiday across many parts of Asia, knowing this, the hackers had set up bank accounts in the Philippines to transfer the money to.
12:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody in the Philippines was any the wiser due to the national holiday.
12:32
[SPEAKER_00]: So in total, this manipulation of time zones bought the Wiley hackers five whole days to get the money and vanish.
12:39
[SPEAKER_00]: But who were they?
12:40
[SPEAKER_00]: This seems way too sophisticated for some run of the mill computer geeks, and it was.
12:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Shockingly, the perpetrators are known as the Lazarus Group, a mysterious team of hackers with concrete ties to the North Korean regime.
12:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Whoa!
12:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Some North Korean defectors alleged they're a state-sponsored hacking organization, known locally as 414 liaison office that conduct cyber warfare operations on behalf of the government.
13:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Criking!
13:09
[SPEAKER_00]: After accessing the bank's computer system on the Thursday night, the hacking team had compromised their online messaging system, which showed records of any attempted transactions.
13:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Now if anyone tried to log on, they'd be greeted with an error?
13:22
[SPEAKER_00]: But there was still the issue of the printer, which would automatically print said transactions anyway.
13:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So, they installed software that wrote it out of action for a few days, then began
13:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Why North Korea targeted Bangladesh specifically?
13:39
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know.
13:40
[SPEAKER_00]: They deny having any involvement.
13:42
[SPEAKER_00]: We do know heavy international sanctions had left them strapped for cash though.
13:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Still, it's kind of crazy to think they nearly made off with a billion dollars.
13:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep, I said nearly.
13:53
[SPEAKER_00]: See, if it wasn't for a few teeny heirs, they would've gotten away with it.
13:58
[SPEAKER_00]: But they didn't.
13:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember the bank account set up in the Philippines to wire the money to?
14:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the bank branch that the hackers used was on Jupiter Street.
14:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Sadly, Jupiter was also the name of a sanctioned Iranian shipping vessel.
14:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Because of this, the Fed had an automatic barricade set up for transactions containing the word, Jupiter, in case people were trying to sneak money where they shouldn't be.
14:22
[SPEAKER_00]: So all but five transfers were blocked, however those five transfers were worth a whopping one hundred one million dollars.
14:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Of that one hundred one million dollars, twenty million dollars was sent to a tree like in charity called the Shalika Foundation.
14:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Nah, they donated some to charity.
14:40
[SPEAKER_00]: How sweet.
14:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Ha, not quite.
14:42
[SPEAKER_00]: See, stealing money digitally isn't as easy as you'd think.
14:46
[SPEAKER_00]: If you were to transfer a large sum of money, it doesn't sit in an account as a $20 million lump sum.
14:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It gets mixed up with all of the foundations other money.
14:56
[SPEAKER_00]: In case you haven't figured it out by now, the shellica foundation had also been hacked by Lazarus Group.
15:02
[SPEAKER_00]: The plan was to send the money from Bangladesh to shellica and then onwards.
15:07
[SPEAKER_00]: By making multiple transfers of different amounts to different recipients and then moving the money on again and again, it becomes almost untraceable, unbelievable.
15:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately for the hackers, a typing error in the donation message for got the O in the name shellica foundation, catching the eye of an employee.
15:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, if you're donating $20 million to charity, you're going to proof read it, right?
15:31
[SPEAKER_00]: This keen-eyed observer reversed the transaction just to be safe, meaning another $20 million slip through the hackers' fingers.
15:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Still, $81 million is no mean sum to get away with?
15:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, it could have been worse, but it was still a devastating blow for Bangladesh where one in five people currently live below the poverty line.
15:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Yikes!
15:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I sure hope they've done all right recovering?
15:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Last New Year I woke up with such a sore head, but if you'd stayed at the Pierre Hotel in New York for New Year in 1972, you'd be waking up with a sore wallet, too.
16:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only does this luxury hotel cost a pretty penny, but it was the stage of the largest hotel robbery of all time.
16:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Associates from the Rochester Crime Family and the Lukesie Crime Family, two of New York's most notorious syndicates, hit the hotel just before 4am.
16:23
[SPEAKER_00]: They arrived dressed to the nines and told security they had a reservation under Dr. Foster.
16:29
[SPEAKER_00]: After confirming the reservation with reception, they were allowed to enter.
16:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's when things took off.
16:36
[SPEAKER_00]: One member held the security guard at gunpoint while another went around and rounded up the hotel crew.
16:41
[SPEAKER_00]: They were running with a skeleton team following the holidays as most guests were sleeping off their celebrations.
16:47
[SPEAKER_00]: To maintain the gang's low profile, one of the robber stationed himself on the hotel phone, if any guests called down with a query or a complaint about their pillows, the gang would send someone up to take care of them.
16:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's kind of... sweet.
17:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the thieves weren't after the stash of Hotel Pillow chocolates.
17:06
[SPEAKER_00]: See, all the well-to-do guests had been out wearing their finest jewelry to look the part at these expensive parties.
17:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And before going to sleep, it was likely they'd stored these valuables in the hotel lock boxes for safekeeping, so the thieves be lined for those boxes, targeting names they recognized like American Real Estate Entrepreneur, Harold Euras, and MLB Executive Tom Yawke.
17:28
[SPEAKER_00]: We're talking real big money players.
17:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Low and behold, one box contained a staggering $500,000 cash and another contained a designer diamond necklace worth of mind-boggling $750,000.
17:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Over two hours, the gang rated 208 lock boxes in total before collecting their goods and leaving the building by 615 the following morning, though not before giving all the hotel workers $20 each for the inconvenience.
17:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Ha!
17:55
[SPEAKER_00]: In total, the gang managed to make off with $27 million in stolen goods and cash.
18:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything seems smooth sailing, however, fencing the goods is where things got a little messy.
18:06
[SPEAKER_00]: The LaCaisy family had a guy who was meant to help themselves some of the more distinctive items.
18:12
[SPEAKER_00]: However, he suddenly switched his demands and asked for 33% of the total take.
18:19
[SPEAKER_00]: The gang became in rage so moved the bulk of the goods to a safe house and Detroit, Michigan.
18:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Once there they began seeking a new buyer, but the guy they found snitched on them and handed the jewels over to the FBI.
18:31
[SPEAKER_00]: The gang members were tracked down and sent to the slamer.
18:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Yikes!
18:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Had their fence not been so greedy, they'd have all made off with a ton of money.
18:41
[SPEAKER_00]: What a bummer!
18:42
[SPEAKER_00]: When Vincenzo Perugia entered the Louvre in Paris on August 21, 1911, he raised very little suspicion.
18:50
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd previously worked there as a handyman and was wearing the uniform.
18:54
[SPEAKER_00]: He was not there to work though.
18:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Perugia waited patiently until the room his prize was kept in head-empty, then did something almost completely unthinkable.
19:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Vincenzo Peru just stole the Mona Lisa, it was as simple as reaching out, lifting it off the wall and carrying it to a nearby service staircase.
19:14
[SPEAKER_00]: There he wrapped the painting in his clothes and left.
19:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Err?
19:18
[SPEAKER_00]: What?
19:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the chances of somebody doing this today are slimmed a none.
19:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you've been to see the Mona Lisa, but she's quite the social butterfly.
19:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Around 30,000 people a day are drawn in to see her smiling face and she's worth upwards of $950 million.
19:36
[SPEAKER_00]: However, back in Peruja's day, she was considered one of Da Vinci's least impressive works, and security was far, far more lags.
19:44
[SPEAKER_00]: So where did Peruja go with his painted woman?
19:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, after laying low for two years, he tried smuggling the painting into Italy, where he believed he'd lined up a buyer in Alfredo Gary, a gallerist in Florence.
19:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Except once Gary saw what painting Peruja was trying to sell him, he immediately contacted the police.
20:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Peruja was cuffed on the spot and the painting was returned to the Louvre.
20:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Yikes!
20:08
[SPEAKER_00]: When police were pressing Peruja about his motives, he said it was a matter of patriotism.
20:14
[SPEAKER_00]: As a proud Italian, Perugia was enraged that one of his nation's most famous artist's work was being hung in a gallery in Yucky France.
20:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Blah!
20:25
[SPEAKER_00]: He wrongly believed that the painting had been stolen by Napoleon in the 1790s, however it had actually been gifted in 1516 to the King of France, the imaginatively named Francis the First.
20:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyways, doesn't profiting off your pillford painting, undermine the whole national hero vibe you're going for.
20:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's all a backstory to cover up his get-rich quick scheme.
20:48
[SPEAKER_00]: But what do you think?
20:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Let us know in the comments if the platform allows it.
20:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Next up, I've always fancied myself as some kind of criminal mastermind.
20:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, no one knows what I look like.
20:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure I could get away with it.
21:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I just don't like the idea of getting my hands dirty.
21:05
[SPEAKER_00]: When a gang of crooks robbed the Banco Central and Florida laser Brazil in 2005, they dirtied a lot more than their hands.
21:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Three months before burglary day and unsuspecting business popped up in the center of the city, just a short distance from the bank.
21:21
[SPEAKER_00]: From the outside, it looked like any old landscaping business selling grass and plants.
21:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Neighbors saw vans of soil being transported from the property every day and thought nothing of it.
21:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Inside, one of the most elaborate heights of the century was well underway.
21:41
[SPEAKER_00]: All of that soil wasn't for your typical landscaping job.
21:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Beneath the building, a gang of between six and ten men had been boring a 256 foot tunnel beneath two city blocks to a position right beneath the bank.
21:55
[SPEAKER_00]: the gang of crooks dug and dug until they eventually broke through 3.6 feet of steel reinforced concrete and popped up straight into the bank vault.
22:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Their finished tunnel was roughly 2.3 feet square and ran 13 feet beneath the surface.
22:10
[SPEAKER_00]: This wasn't some dank muddy shoot either.
22:13
[SPEAKER_00]: The walls were reinforced with wood and plastic it was lit throughout and there was even aircon.
22:19
[SPEAKER_00]: darn, in New York that it'd be $4,000 a month, but why make it so high-tech?
22:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, inside the vault at Banco Central was $71.6 million in cash, and all that money was pretty heavy around 3.5 tons.
22:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Holy smokes.
22:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Picture a small mountain of cash, stacks of banknotes piled floor to ceiling, filling half a small room.
22:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So the tunnel had to be structurally sound enough to support moving all that weight through it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The burglar struck on a Saturday and managed to disable the alarms, ensuring they had enough time to transport the huge quantity of money through their tunnel network before the bank was due to open on Monday, then they popped up out the other end, loaded it into a transport, and it was gone.
23:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Poof.
23:08
[SPEAKER_00]: 71.6 million dollars gone just like that.
23:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Genius.
23:12
[SPEAKER_00]: As for what happened to the money or where the gang went, well that's where things get a little money.
23:19
[SPEAKER_00]: The gang behind this audacious theft is thought to have been masterminded by one Luis Fernando Ribeiro.
23:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Only we can't be sure, seat Ribeiro was kidnapped shortly after the heist, and when he was found, well, let's just say he wasn't in any condition to answer questions.
23:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Yikes, and that's been something of a pattern with this crime.
23:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Many of the suspects police have wanted to question have wound up mysteriously disappearing.
23:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm, the plot thickens.
23:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Sounds to me like there might have been a guy on the inside trying to cover their tracks.
23:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Let us know what you think in the comments if the platform allows it.
23:57
[SPEAKER_00]: When Leonardo Notar Bartolo took out a lease on a $700 per month apartment in Antwerp's Diamond District back in late 2001, it didn't raise too many eyebrows.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He introduced himself to everyone as a diamond merchant, so it made sense he'd want to be in the
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[SPEAKER_00]: Little did Leonardo's associates know he was only interested in obtaining diamonds at a hefty five finger discount.
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[SPEAKER_00]: See, Leonardo notar Bartolo is the genius behind the world's largest diamond heist, one worth over $100 million.
24:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Now this wasn't like in the movies where someone lowers themselves from the ceiling towards some giant glowing diamond.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No, not our Bartolo role played as a diamond dealer for 18 months, while secretly learning Intel for his elaborate bust, with the help of a cunning crew of fellow criminals.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But a few major problems stood in their way, there were cameras, heat sensors, radar, and a lock with over 100 million possible combinations.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Each of these issues would have to be solved if not our Bartolo was to be successful.
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[SPEAKER_00]: First was the lock.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Note our Bartolo managed to hide a tiny camera above the vault which remained undetected by the guards and was able to record the combination.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Next were the heat sensors.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The day before the highest note our Bartolo visited the vault as he'd done many times before when posing as a diamond dealer.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Once inside, he secretly sprayed the thermal motion sensors with hairspray, ingeniously the oils in the product temporarily insulated the sensors from fluctuations in the room.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It didn't last forever, but it bought the group quite a few hours.
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[SPEAKER_00]: As for the big day itself, note our Bartolo and his gang of thieves were well prepared.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They'd built a scale replica of the vault and had been practicing in it, so they could practically do it with their eyes closed.
25:54
[SPEAKER_00]: While Nautar Bartolo park the getaway car, one of his accomplices known as the King of Keys picked the lock on an abandoned office building next door.
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[SPEAKER_00]: By going through the office building into a private garden it shared with the Diamond Center, the crew now had a way in proper.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The Diamond Center itself was accessible by climbing a ladder to a small balcony.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This was guarded by an infrared sensor, but they blocked their heat signatures by placing a cheap homemade polyester shield in front of it.
26:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Ha!
26:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Once the gang was in, they disabled the security systems and entered the vault.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now the vault door could only be opened with a complex footlong key, but the king of keys had managed to replicate it just by watching security footage.
26:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Damn, this guy really is a king.
26:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Once they were inside the vault almost everything was done in total darkness to minimize their chances of being detected.
26:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Incredibly, they knew the layout to the very inch after hours of practice in the replica vault.
26:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Using a hand crank jack, they cracked open 123 out of 160 safety deposit boxes, grabbed the contents and emptied it all into duffle bags.
27:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Then they left the way they came, making sure to steal the security footage as they did so.
27:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Once back at Notar Bartolo's car, the gang loaded the goods into the back and Notar Bartolo drove to the safe house while the burglar's proceeded on foot.
27:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Notar Bartolo had covered every conceivable detail, even destroying the evidence, which he left to a robber who went by speedy.
27:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Only speedy dropped the ball and had a panic attack throwing all the evidence into a bush instead of burning it, like Notar Bartolo instructed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A local hunter who owned the land where Speedy had flight-tiped the evidence found it and called the police.
27:40
[SPEAKER_00]: When he told police that envelopes contained in the trash were marked with Antwerp Diamond Center, the cops knew this could be key to busting the perpetrators.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Indeed, they also found a grocery store receipt amongst the discarded documents, and after checking the stores, CCTV, they were led straight to Natarbartolo.
28:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Yikes!
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[SPEAKER_00]: He was sentenced to 10 years while Speedy and two other members of the crew got five years each.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The King of Keys was never caught.
28:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Except Natarbartolo had one more twist in the tale.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He later claimed in an interview that a local diamond merchant had hired him to conduct the bust for insurance fraud.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, they overinflated the value of the good stolen from the true value of $20 million up to $100 million.
28:28
[SPEAKER_00]: By claiming the diamond stolen and getting an insurance payout, there was a lot of money to be made from this.
28:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So who really committed the crime here?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it depends on who you believe.
28:40
[SPEAKER_00]: According to both Belgian police and the authors of the leading book on the matter, Natar Bartolo's version of events have no basis in truth.
28:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Was he just trying to shift the blame?
28:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll leave that question up to you, and just like that, my jail's looking pretty full.
28:55
[SPEAKER_00]: No more crooks for today gang.
28:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Still, which of those high stakes highs did you enjoy the most?
29:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Let us know in the comments if the platform allows it.
29:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you enjoyed this episode, hit follow wherever you listen to podcasts, so you don't miss the next one.
29:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening.