Latest / History Dark / FLYING BANDIT (Full Documentary) 72 Hours_ True Crime _ Dark Crimes
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Just as a perfect diamond is rare, rarer still is
- 0:06Speaker 1: the perfect crime.
- 0:10Speaker 2: But one October morning, it happens.
- 0:14Speaker 1: It's well-organized, the thieves in full disguise. Split-second timing, exquisite taste,
- 0:25Speaker 1: and in less than two minutes, they have their prize. 1.2
- 0:33Speaker 1: million in jewelry, one of the biggest heists in Canadian history.
- 0:39Speaker 2: And then, they vanish into thin.
- 0:49Speaker 3: Air.
- 0:54Speaker 1: In true crime, investigation and conviction may take years. But
- 1:02Speaker 1: every detective knows that the crucial clue is always there,
- 1:06Speaker 1: somewhere in the first 72 hours.
- 1:19Speaker 2: Vancouver, 1986.
- 1:22Speaker 1: Police are on the scene of a jewel heist in minutes.
- 1:25Speaker 1: But the terrified staff can't tell them much about the robbers.
- 1:29Speaker 1: They were in full disguise. They knew exactly which counters
- 1:34Speaker 1: to hit, only those with valuable jewelry. The robbery happened
- 1:41Speaker 1: in broad daylight. And yet nobody saw the thieves run
- 1:46Speaker 1: out of the mall. Police don't have much to go on,
- 1:51Speaker 1: but in a back corridor, police find their first clues,
- 1:55Speaker 1: the robber's disguises and a shotgun. It takes time to
- 2:00Speaker 1: trace the gun, It isn't registered to a Vancouver owner.
- 2:04Speaker 2: Instead, the gun is tracked to a recent theft half
- 2:07Speaker 2: a continent away, in Ottawa.
- 2:13Speaker 1: The gun is sent to Ottawa detectives Ralph Heyerhoff and
- 2:17Speaker 1: George Snyder.
- 2:21Speaker 3: The shotgun was a sawed-off shotgun.
- 2:23Speaker 4: The serial number was not filed off.
- 2:26Speaker 3: It was still intact.
- 2:28Speaker 4: And ironically enough, at that time, I was investigating a
- 2:31Speaker 4: break-in in the west end of Ottawa where the shotgun
- 2:33Speaker 4: had been stolen from.
- 2:35Speaker 3: It matched up with the serial numbers.
- 2:37Speaker 1: Kierhoff is convinced that whoever stole the gun here must
- 2:40Speaker 1: be connected to the heist in Vancouver. But is the
- 2:43Speaker 1: story that simple?
- 2:46Speaker 3: I knew I had to find the guy who did
- 2:47Speaker 3: the break-and-enter.
- 2:48Speaker 1: The detectives have years of first-hand experience with the Ottawa
- 2:52Speaker 1: criminal underworld.
- 2:54Speaker 2: Luckily.
- 2:55Speaker 1: Detective George Snyder is a walking encyclopedia of local criminals.
- 3:01Speaker 5: Well, my specialty when I came to this case was
- 3:03Speaker 5: street informants. There was nobody that I arrested that I
- 3:07Speaker 5: did not try to turn. And by turn, I tried
- 3:11Speaker 5: to get information out of them.
- 3:13Speaker 1: One of those informants told them who had stolen the gun.
- 3:19Speaker 1: It takes detectives a while to chase down the thief,
- 3:22Speaker 1: one of the busiest break-and-enter artists in town.
- 3:26Speaker 2: Lefty Williams. He's used to negotiating with police.
- 3:33Speaker 1: He's got a long rap sheet, but he knows they
- 3:36Speaker 1: won't arrest him for just stealing the gun if he
- 3:38Speaker 1: gives them the information they're looking for. He says he
- 3:42Speaker 1: doesn't know anything about a heist in Vancouver. All he
- 3:46Speaker 1: knows is that he sold the gun to a major
- 3:48Speaker 1: player in town, someone known as the big man. It
- 3:53Speaker 1: was weeks ago when Lefty took the gun to a
- 3:55Speaker 1: strip club But he tells police that the big man
- 4:03Speaker 1: never dirties his hands with any illicit transactions. He has
- 4:08Speaker 1: others to do that work. He's got a good right-hand
- 4:15Speaker 1: man who looks after all the details. Lefty says he
- 4:20Speaker 1: was paid in drugs and some cash. But after that,
- 4:24Speaker 1: he has no idea what happened to the gun. Police
- 4:28Speaker 1: know the big man very well. He's a kingpin in
- 4:32Speaker 1: the Ottawa criminal underworld, a guy who receives and sells
- 4:36Speaker 1: stolen property, a fence, They've been trying to get evidence
- 4:41Speaker 1: on him for years.
- 4:43Speaker 5: He's connected to the criminal underworld in Ottawa probably better
- 4:47Speaker 5: than almost everybody. If you were looking for a gun
- 4:51Speaker 5: to do a job, you could go to him and
- 4:53Speaker 5: get a gun. If you were looking for an accomplice,
- 4:55Speaker 5: you could go to him and he would connect you
- 4:58Speaker 5: with somebody that would be your accomplice on the job,
- 5:00Speaker 5: and he would also take care of the product after
- 5:03Speaker 5: you brought it back.
- 5:04Speaker 1: If the big man fenced the shotgun used in the
- 5:07Speaker 1: Vancouver jewelry heist....
- 5:10Speaker 2: There's a good chance he moved the stolen goods as well.
- 5:15Speaker 5: He was moving as much stolen property as Sears was
- 5:18Speaker 5: moving legitimate property, but there was little or nothing we could.
- 5:20Speaker 6: Do about it.
- 5:22Speaker 1: Police would have to catch the big man with the
- 5:24Speaker 1: hot property in order to arrest him. But they know
- 5:27Speaker 1: this guy's a smooth operator. He and the jewelry store
- 5:30Speaker 1: bandit would have worked out a tight turnaround and the
- 5:33Speaker 1: jewels would be long gone by now.
- 5:36Speaker 5: He's a professional. Being a criminal was his business. He
- 5:39Speaker 5: understood that being a police officer was your business. He
- 5:41Speaker 5: respected you. He expected you to show respect to him,
- 5:45Speaker 5: and game on.
- 5:48Speaker 1: Police review the case files of eight major jewelry store
- 5:51Speaker 1: robberies over the past three years, right across the country.
- 5:56Speaker 1: They discover all have the same modus operandi as in
- 5:59Speaker 1: the Vancouver heist. Disguises, guns, split-second timing, and invisible getaways.
- 6:07Speaker 1: The Burke's jewelry chain is their favorite target.
- 6:11Speaker 4: And again, everything starts falling into place. The light bulbs
- 6:13Speaker 4: start going on and start realizing it's all connected.
- 6:16Speaker 1: They surmise there must be one mastermind behind all this.
- 6:20Speaker 1: Someone bigger than the big man. Sometimes with an accomplice,
- 6:24Speaker 1: sometimes working alone. And then, one morning, Heyerhoff and Snyder
- 6:30Speaker 1: receive some shocking news. A jewelry store robbery is underway
- 6:35Speaker 1: right in their own backyard. The detectives race to the
- 6:40Speaker 1: store to catch the jewel thieves in a downtown mall.
- 6:44Speaker 1: But if this heist is the work of the same mastermind,
- 6:48Speaker 1: they'll be too quick for police. The mastermind and his
- 6:53Speaker 1: accomplice have pulled off a perfect robbery.
- 6:57Speaker 2: No gun left behind this time.
- 7:03Speaker 4: Ironically enough, we had a police crime stopper event going
- 7:06Speaker 4: on at that time. It was pretty bold and brazen
- 7:09Speaker 4: to go up three floors and rob the largest jewelry
- 7:12Speaker 4: store in the mall, and then these guys took off.
- 7:16Speaker 3: Good luck. Take care.
- 7:17Speaker 1: All right, thank you.
- 7:17Speaker 3: Okay.
- 7:18Speaker 1: All right, have a nice day. By the time police arrive,
- 7:25Speaker 1: the bandits have walked away with $ 180, 000 in estate jewelry.
- 7:39Speaker 1: Whoever the mastermind is, he's a pro's pro, and he's
- 7:43Speaker 1: probably already planning his next heist. Detectives George Snyder and
- 7:52Speaker 1: Ralph Heyerhoff are still one step behind the mastermind of
- 7:56Speaker 1: several jewelry store robberies. He's just disappeared with 180 grand
- 8:00Speaker 1: in jewelry. Odds are he'll unload the goods through the
- 8:07Speaker 1: most notorious fence in town, the big man.
- 8:11Speaker 3: He was well known for jewelry. He likes jewelry. He
- 8:13Speaker 3: would wear a lot of jewelry and was very, very
- 8:15Speaker 3: knowledgeable about jewelry.
- 8:18Speaker 5: It was a bit of a fetish with him. It
- 8:19Speaker 5: was his trademark. So we started to just focus all
- 8:24Speaker 5: of our attention on who was around at the club.
- 8:27Speaker 1: If the bandit is working with the big man, he
- 8:30Speaker 1: will eventually have to make contact with him. But no
- 8:34Speaker 1: one suspicious appears outside the club, only Jimmy Risely, the
- 8:38Speaker 1: longtime bouncer.
- 8:41Speaker 2: He's the big man's right-hand man.
- 8:44Speaker 6: We began an intensive surveillance of him and his activities.
- 8:51Speaker 1: If the jewelry is moving through the club, Jimmy's the
- 8:54Speaker 1: guy who will do the transactions. Following him might lead
- 8:59Speaker 1: police to the bandit. but he's very surveillance conscious and
- 9:05Speaker 1: good at smelling out cops.
- 9:16Speaker 5: He was very adept at tricking us and getting so
- 9:20Speaker 5: that he was basically chasing the surveillance team instead of
- 9:22Speaker 5: us chasing him.
- 9:27Speaker 4: The fact that he was willing to chase us, I
- 9:29Speaker 4: thought that was interesting. It was scary at first, and
- 9:31Speaker 4: then I thought, wow, this is pretty neat.
- 9:33Speaker 3: He's pretty bold. He's not afraid of us. I knew
- 9:36Speaker 3: this was pointless. This surveillance stuff wasn't going to work,
- 9:39Speaker 3: so we had to go to the direct approach. He
- 9:43Speaker 3: knows we're there. Let's just go meet the guy and
- 9:45Speaker 3: talk to him.
- 9:49Speaker 5: I invited him to join me for breakfast right across
- 9:51Speaker 5: the street so I could have a conversation with him.
- 9:56Speaker 5: He failed to show up, which did not surprise me.
- 10:01Speaker 1: Suspecting that Jimmy's still in his apartment, the detectives used
- 10:05Speaker 1: the super's key to surprise him. Jimmy might be smart.
- 10:17Speaker 1: But he's also extremely claustrophobic. Detectives question him about the
- 10:28Speaker 1: jewelry store heists.
- 10:31Speaker 2: But he's not in a cooperative mood.
- 10:33Speaker 3: He's a very hyper guy, very active guy, very animated.
- 10:36Speaker 4: His hands were going, his head would be going, his
- 10:38Speaker 4: feet would be going all the time.
- 10:40Speaker 3: He couldn't sit still at all.
- 10:42Speaker 2: Jimmy's not giving them what they need.
- 10:45Speaker 1: They remind him there's a warrant out for him on
- 10:47Speaker 1: a recent break and enter.
- 10:50Speaker 2: They threaten to arrest him on the spot.
- 10:52Speaker 3: This guy definitely did not want to go back to jail.
- 10:55Speaker 3: He really, really didn't have much of a choice. He
- 10:57Speaker 3: was going to have to cooperate.
- 10:58Speaker 4: Or do a substantial amount of jail time.
- 11:02Speaker 5: I asked him, what do you know about the Berks Bandit?
- 11:07Speaker 5: He wouldn't give me a straight answer, but he said, well,
- 11:10Speaker 5: there's a new guy around. I don't really know his name.
- 11:12Speaker 5: I don't know much about him. I think he's an American.
- 11:19Speaker 1: A few days later, Heyerhoff spots someone matching the description
- 11:23Speaker 1: of the new guy.
- 11:28Speaker 2: Heyerhoff runs the license plate.
- 11:30Speaker 1: The guy's name is Robert Whiteman, and he lives in Pembroke,
- 11:34Speaker 1: a town an hour outside of Ottawa.
- 11:38Speaker 4: We were very experienced seasoned police officers, and we knew
- 11:41Speaker 4: the majority of the main players in town.
- 11:43Speaker 3: We did not know this guy.
- 11:46Speaker 1: So for now, the police are going to just watch him.
- 11:51Speaker 1: Inside the club, Detective Snyder sees Whiteman flashing cash.
- 11:56Speaker 2: But that's not illegal.
- 12:00Speaker 1: In fact, he just seems like some guy who likes
- 12:02Speaker 1: strip clubs. Although he's suspiciously friendly with the big man.
- 12:10Speaker 1: Detectives travel to Pembroke, where Robert Whiteman has lived with
- 12:13Speaker 1: his girlfriend for the past couple of years.
- 12:18Speaker 5: He was a middle-aged gentleman with a young family, not
- 12:23Speaker 5: the sort of person that you would be thinking was
- 12:25Speaker 5: a criminal at all, just very, very average. He worked
- 12:29Speaker 5: for his father's security company, moving money around and also
- 12:33Speaker 5: doing background checks of businesses for their security.
- 12:39Speaker 1: Whiteman appears to be clean. He has no criminal record.
- 12:44Speaker 1: It may just be another dead end for police, but then,
- 12:48Speaker 1: From a routine analysis of Robert Whiteman's bank and credit
- 12:51Speaker 1: card records, document specialist Mel Robertson discovers something astounding.
- 12:57Speaker 7: We started looking at his banking statements and as a
- 13:02Speaker 7: result of that we came across the gold mine. We
- 13:06Speaker 7: found that we could put him through the use of
- 13:09Speaker 7: his banking cards where the robberies had happened.
- 13:14Speaker 1: Robertson sees that every time a major jewelry store was robbed,
- 13:18Speaker 1: Whiteman was in that city using his credit card.
- 13:22Speaker 7: Well, I think the most exciting moment was when we
- 13:25Speaker 7: recognized that he had purchased a meal using that credit
- 13:28Speaker 7: card the day of the Burke's shop in Vancouver, dining
- 13:31Speaker 7: right across the street.
- 13:34Speaker 1: Police now believe that contrary to all appearances, Robert Whiteman
- 13:39Speaker 1: could be the master jewel thief they've.
- 13:40Speaker 2: Been looking for.
- 13:42Speaker 1: But in order to prove it, they need to nab
- 13:44Speaker 1: Whiteman with the goods. And that's not easy, because jewelry
- 13:49Speaker 1: is fenced within hours. Once again, police turn to Jimmy
- 13:54Speaker 1: the bouncer for information.
- 13:58Speaker 5: One of the goals that I had was to try
- 13:59Speaker 5: to get him to forecast a job so that he
- 14:02Speaker 5: would tell us in advance when a job was going down.
- 14:06Speaker 6: Our investigation had shown that Mr.
- 14:09Speaker 5: Whiteman was flying all over Canada, and that wherever he flew,
- 14:12Speaker 5: jobs went down.
- 14:14Speaker 1: Jimmy doesn't know about any future jobs, But he does
- 14:18Speaker 1: say that just yesterday he and the big man were talking.
- 14:22Speaker 1: When Whiteman drove up and started bragging about pulling a
- 14:25Speaker 1: heist in Winnipeg the day before. Winnipeg police confirmed Jimmy's story.
- 14:35Speaker 1: An armed robbery was carried out yesterday by a man
- 14:38Speaker 1: in disguise. Early the next morning, the detectives returned to Pembroke.
- 14:45Speaker 3: We were left with no alternative. So the only approach
- 14:48Speaker 3: at that time was then the direct approach. Speak to him.
- 14:51Speaker 3: See what he has to say. Maybe get something out
- 14:53Speaker 3: of that.
- 14:56Speaker 1: Whiteman's girlfriend says he's not home. He had to leave
- 15:00Speaker 1: suddenly on business. She adds that maybe they can still
- 15:03Speaker 1: catch him at the Pembroke Airport. The detectives can't believe it.
- 15:09Speaker 1: They have surveillance in place at the Ottawa airport, but.
- 15:12Speaker 5: None of us were from Pembroke, and none of us
- 15:15Speaker 5: realized that there was an airport in Pembroke.
- 15:17Speaker 2: Once again, they are one step behind.
- 15:19Speaker 5: Our first concern was that he has spotted our surveillance.
- 15:24Speaker 5: He's figured out the heat is on, and he's flown
- 15:26Speaker 5: the coop.
- 15:27Speaker 1: Or he might be on his way to another robbery,
- 15:30Speaker 1: and they'll be too late to stop him. By the
- 15:39Speaker 1: time detectives Snyder and Heyerhoff arrive at the local Pembroke Airport,
- 15:44Speaker 1: suspected master jewel thief Robert Whiteman has literally flown the coup.
- 15:49Speaker 5: Fortunately for us, we decided that maybe let's investigate him leaving.
- 15:55Speaker 5: Let's assume that maybe he's gone for another job.
- 16:00Speaker 1: Detective Heyerhoff discovers that Whiteman has chartered a small plane
- 16:04Speaker 1: to a city one hour away. And sure enough, police
- 16:09Speaker 1: learn another heist has just gone down with a man
- 16:12Speaker 1: in disguise. If Whiteman sticks to his M.O., he'll be
- 16:17Speaker 1: back in Pembroke before the day is out.
- 16:20Speaker 6: We've got a very, very good plan in place.
- 16:22Speaker 5: He's gonna come back to his family and he's gonna
- 16:25Speaker 5: carry all of the goodies with him when he comes back.
- 16:29Speaker 1: Hours later, detectives spot Whiteman's girlfriend waiting for him at
- 16:34Speaker 1: the airport.
- 16:44Speaker 6: On the day of the takedown, she was devastated.
- 16:48Speaker 7: She just couldn't believe it. She was just in total denial.
- 16:51Speaker 7: She said, no, you've got the wrong person. He's a businessman,
- 16:54Speaker 7: he travels a lot, but he's not a robber.
- 17:00Speaker 2: The proof is irrefutable. Whiteman has been caught red-handed.
- 17:09Speaker 1: But detectives are surprised by his cool, unflappable demeanour.
- 17:13Speaker 2: As if he's going to get away with everything.
- 17:16Speaker 5: My gut feeling in looking at him, there was something
- 17:20Speaker 5: still missing in our investigation that he knew was missing.
- 17:26Speaker 1: That's when police discover something very odd about Whiteman's past.
- 17:32Speaker 6: There was no evidence of him existing.
- 17:34Speaker 3: Prior to 1985.
- 17:35Speaker 7: No birth certificates, no previous driver's licenses, no previous addresses.
- 17:41Speaker 7: So it's like he'd been parachuted into Pembroke.
- 17:44Speaker 1: His prints are sent to Interpol and police suspicions are confirmed.
- 17:49Speaker 1: The name Robert Whiteman is an alias.
- 17:52Speaker 7: He was then identified as Gilbert Galvin, an escapee from
- 17:57Speaker 7: the United States.
- 18:00Speaker 6: I went back and asked Mr.
- 18:03Speaker 5: Galvin under that name how he was doing, and the
- 18:07Speaker 5: look in his eyes told me everything I needed to know.
- 18:11Speaker 5: When he heard the name Galvin, he knew that he
- 18:13Speaker 5: was done.
- 18:15Speaker 1: Under his alias, Robert Whiteman, he could easily have been
- 18:18Speaker 1: released on bail and then skip the country.
- 18:23Speaker 6: Now that we knew he was Mr.
- 18:24Speaker 5: Galvin, he was an American, he'd already fled a institution
- 18:28Speaker 5: down in the States, he was not going to be
- 18:29Speaker 5: getting bail. So any thought that he had that he
- 18:31Speaker 5: was going to be getting out was now gone.
- 18:34Speaker 1: Three years before, Gilbert Galvin had escaped a Michigan prison
- 18:38Speaker 1: where he was serving time for fraud.
- 18:40Speaker 2: He headed for.
- 18:41Speaker 1: Ottawa and adopted the alias Robert Whiteman. As Whiteman, he
- 18:47Speaker 1: started a new criminal career robbing banks across the country.
- 18:51Speaker 1: He always worked alone. Dressed as a businessman, Whiteman would
- 18:56Speaker 1: charter a small plane from Pembroke and transfer to Air
- 19:00Speaker 1: Canada at a larger airport. Guns packed in his luggage
- 19:05Speaker 1: went from one hole to the other without ever being
- 19:07Speaker 1: checked by security. The Whiteman tells police he's soon tired
- 19:14Speaker 1: of robbing banks. His average haul was less than five grand.
- 19:23Speaker 1: Jewelry stores could give him much more. And even better,
- 19:29Speaker 1: he admits, diamonds took his breath away. But in order
- 19:35Speaker 1: to rob jewelry stores, he needed to work with an accomplice.
- 19:39Speaker 2: It was worth it.
- 19:41Speaker 1: With a partner, Whiteman could scoop hundreds of thousands of
- 19:44Speaker 1: dollars worth of diamonds in less than two minutes.
- 19:52Speaker 5: His skills as a bandit were way above anything I
- 19:55Speaker 5: had ever seen before. The fact that he would do
- 20:03Speaker 5: these jobs right at noon, no getaway.
- 20:06Speaker 6: Car, no running, just very, very calmly, to leave the job.
- 20:11Speaker 5: I'm sure his heart was pounding, but he kept it
- 20:13Speaker 5: all together under control, but oftentimes see.
- 20:15Speaker 6: The police running.
- 20:21Speaker 2: But Whiteman made one fatal mistake.
- 20:29Speaker 1: He used an inexperienced accomplice at the Vancouver jewelry heist,
- 20:33Speaker 1: and that accomplice left behind the only clue for police
- 20:36Speaker 1: to follow.
- 20:37Speaker 2: The shotgun. found in the first hours of the investigation.
- 20:41Speaker 5: In my mind, if he'd continued to operate alone, he
- 20:45Speaker 5: might have continued for a long, long time before anybody
- 20:48Speaker 5: caught wind of what he was up to.
- 20:53Speaker 2: In the end, Gilbert Galvin, a.k.a.
- 20:55Speaker 1: Robert Whiteman, is charged with 59 counts of armed robbery.
- 21:00Speaker 1: Police try to bargain with him, give up the big man,
- 21:03Speaker 1: who undoubtedly moved the jewelry, and Galvin will do less time.
- 21:07Speaker 2: But Galvin won't rat on the fence. It's not his style.
- 21:11Speaker 1: For that bit of bravado, Gilbert Galvin is sentenced to
- 21:15Speaker 1: 20 years in Canadian prison.
- 21:18Speaker 6: I certainly respected Mr. Galvin. He was obviously very, very bright.
- 21:23Speaker 5: And it was quite a challenge to go after him.
- 21:26Speaker 5: He didn't think very much of Canadian police, but now
- 21:28Speaker 5: that we had him, he realized that we were a
- 21:30Speaker 5: lot smarter than he had initially given us credit for.
- 21:33Speaker 6: And you could see their respect was there, going both ways.
- 21:38Speaker 1: The more than $ 2 million worth of cash and jewelry
- 21:41Speaker 1: he stole has never been recovered. The stories on 72
- 21:51Speaker 1: Hours are true. The detectives and forensic scientists are the
- 21:55Speaker 1: ones who actually worked on the case.
- 21:58Speaker 2: The names of the victims are fictitious. The names of
- 22:02Speaker 2: the convicted are real.
- 22:10Speaker 1: Thank you.