Ten Greatest Heists

Here are ten of the largest, most ingenious heists in history.

Beirut

An industrious guerrilla force used the civil disorder in Beirut during January 1976 as the perfect opportunity to pull a heist. On January 20th, members of the militant group Force 17 blasted through an exterior wall to gain access to the vaults of the British Bank of the Middle East in Bab Idriss. Gold bars, stocks, jewelry and currency were stolen from safe deposit boxes at a total estimated between $20 million and $50 million USD, considered the largest safe deposit box robbery in history by the Guinness Book of World Records.

The Lufthansa Heist

The 1978 robbery at the Lufthansa Air Terminal in New York was the biggest cash robbery in the history of the United States. On December 11, a team of hooded gunmen entered the cargo terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. They made off with almost $6 million USD in untraceable American currency that was being delivered to the United States from Germany. The plot was reportedly masterminded by mobster Jimmy “The Gent” Burke and was immortalized in Martin Scorcese’s Goodfellas.

Heathrow International Airport

In February 2002, two men held up a security van at Heathrow’s Terminal 4 and made off with 4.6 million English pounds. The men attacked as security guards were unloading the money from a plane that had just arrived from Bahrain. A month later, a similar heist occurred at the airport involving a plane that had just arrived from South Africa. The February heist was the largest ever at Heathrow. The area has been a hotspot for heists over the last few decades -- in 1983, gold bullions worth 25 million English pounds were stolen from a Heathrow warehouse.

The Great Train robbery

One of the most infamous heists in history, the Great Train Robbery took place on August 8, 1963, when fifteen masked men brought the Glasgow to London mail train to a halt in Buckinghamshire. The robbers boarded the train and then made off with 120 mailbags containing 2.6 million English pounds in used bank notes. The story has remained in the news through the years largely due to the efforts to bring Ronnie Biggs, one of the gang, to justice. Biggs turned himself in to authorities in 2000 after 35 years on the run.

Boston Museum Robbery

When two police officers arrived at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston on March 18th, 1990 saying that they were responding to a disturbance on the property, they were quickly admitted by security. Once they gained entry, the two men handcuffed the security guards on duty and went to work. When they left an hour later, it was with a dozen paintings -- including works by Degas and Rembrandt, worth an estimated 300 million USD. While IRA terrorists are suspected of the heist, no arrests have ever been made.

Cannes

The biggest jewel heist in history took place in Cannes, France in 1994, when three men, armed with machine guns robbed the jewelry store in the Carlton Hotel. The men entered as the store was closing, firing their guns and shouting. The 30 million English pounds in jewels they stole were rumoured to belong to one of France’s leading jewelers, Alexander Reza. It was later discovered that the machine guns were loaded with blanks.

The Stopwatch Gang

The Stopwatch Gang consisted of three transplanted Canadians who made a living robbing banks in the United States and Canada—an estimated 100 banks and $15 million CDN. Consisting of Paddy Mitchell, Lionel Wright and Stephen Reid, the gang was given their moniker for the large stopwatch one man wore around his neck during jobs. The gang’s greatest heist took place at a Bank of America branch in San Diego in 1980, when the $283,000 USD they made off with set a California record. Stephen Reid later became a noted Canadian author after writing Jackrabbit Paroleand being paroled. In 1999, Reid re-offended and is currently serving 18 years for armed robbery.

Antwerp

In February 2003, thieves cleared out 123 of the 160 vaults in Antwerp’s Diamond Centre. Located in a maximum security cellar, the total value of the stolen diamonds has been estimated at 100 million euros and has been called the theft of the century. It was the second time in 10 years that the Diamond Centre was robbed; the first time five vaults were pillaged for a value of 4.55 million euros. Police made four arrests under a month later, but to date the stolen diamonds have not been recovered.

Montreal Museum Robbery

In early September 1972, the Montreal Museum of Fine Art disabled their alarm system in order to do roof repairs. On September 4th, thieves seized upon this lapse in security when they entered the museum through a skylight, tied up the lone security guard and pillaged the museum’s European collection, including works by Brueghel and Rubens. The most valuable work stolen in the heist was Rembrandt’s “Landscape with Cottages,” one of the master artist’s last known landscapes which had a 1972 value in excess of $1 million USD. Despite the involvement of the RCMP and the FBI, no arrests have been made and none of the art has been recovered.

Brinks

The Boston headquarters of Brinks Inc. was supposed to be burglar-proof, featuring state-of-the-art security for 1950. So when a nine-member gang stormed the Brinks office on January 17, 1950 and left with 2.7 million USD in cash and securities, it came as some surprise, even to FBI boss J Edgar Hoover, who claimed the job was the work of organized crime and the Communist party. While all nine gang members were eventually apprehended, over one million US dollars was never accounted for.