People love a good heist, which explains why it’s a favorite trope of Hollywood movies. However, many people don’t know that some of their favorite heist stories actually occurred in real life. From an after-hours art museum robbery to a tunnel under a bank vault, here are 10 mysterious heists from the not-so-distant past.
The Lufthansa Heist at JFK
On December 11, 1978, masked robbers invaded the Lufthansa terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport, held the employees hostage, and emptied the vault. An FBI investigation led to a gangster named James Burke and his crew but failed to charge them with the heist. In the end, the only person to be convicted was airport worker Louis Werner. While the identities of the robbers are known in this case, the real mystery is the fate of the $5 million in cash and $870,000 worth of jewelry taken from the vault.
The Great Train Robbery in 1963
A little after three in the morning on August 8, 1963, in Ledburn, England, a crew of 15 robbers boarded the mail train’s high-value packages carriage and made off with over 2 million British pounds, equivalent to over $3 million today. Authorities worked quickly to identify 14 out of the 15 robbers, ultimately bringing charges to 11 in the end. However, less than a quarter of the haul was recovered. And the identity of the final robber, a post office informant, remains unknown.
Brazil’s Infamous Banco Central Heist
In 2005, a mysterious gardening business sprang up next door to the Banco Central in Fortaleza, Brazil. In reality, the business was a facade hiding a massive digging project. Many months later, a team finally tunneled into Banco Central’s vault and secured a haul amounting to $70 million. Several arrests have been made in the years since the heist, but only a fraction of the money has been recovered.
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
On March 18, 1990, workers at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston arrived for their morning shift to find that 13 works of art had been stolen from their frames. In spite of a $10 million reward put forth by the museum, no arrests have been made in the case, and the stolen artwork remains missing to this day.
The Banco Itau Heist in Sao Paolo
Just before midnight on August 27, 2011, a group of 12 men disguised as laborers walked into Banco Itau in Sao Paolo, Brazil. Throughout the night, they emptied 170 private deposit boxes, escaping with an estimated $95 million worth of diamonds, gold bars, and other valuables. Authorities have identified some of the robbers involved, but the identities of the other participants and the location of the stolen items are still a mystery.
Northern Bank Heist in Belfast
One of the largest bank heists in the U.K. occurred in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 2004 when kidnappers forced two Northern Bank employees to rob their own workplace. Millions of uncirculated bank notes were stolen, so much so that the country immediately redesigned their paper currency and recommended that its citizens exchange their old notes for the new design. A package containing some of the stolen notes was found in a public toilet a few months after the heist, but the overall case is still unsolved.
Dunbar Armored Robbery in L.A.
On September 12, 1997, masked intruders broke into the Dunbar Armored facility in Los Angeles and made off with $18 million in a rented truck. Due to the efficient nature of the crime, which took less than 30 minutes, authorities suspected that the perpetrators had inside help. Eventually, former Dunbar employee Allen Pace III was implicated, along with his accomplices. However, only $5 million of the total take has been accounted for.
The Antwerp World Diamond Center
The Antwerp World Diamond Center in Belgium, home to the world’s largest diamond companies, experienced the “heist of the century” when it was robbed over several days in February 2003. Like a story out of Hollywood, a mastermind named Leonardo Notarbartolo assembled a motley crew to steal an estimated $100 million worth of diamonds and fine jewelry. In the end, only one of Notarbartolo’s accomplices escaped justice, and most of the diamonds are still missing.
The Brink’s-Mat Robbery in London
The Brink’s-Mat Robbery refers to an event that occurred in 1983 when intruders broke into the Brink’s-Mat warehouse in London. They had originally planned to steal a little over $1 million in cash but were surprised to find an additional $30 million worth of gold bars. Ultimately, two out of six perpetrators were convicted, and the stolen gold is assumed to have reentered the market somehow.
The Denver U.S. Mint Robbery
On December 18, 1922, a trio of men intercepted $200,000 from the Denver Mint as it was being loaded onto a truck. A shoot-out followed, resulting in the death of one of the robbers, Charles Linton. Unfortunately, Linton was the only identified robber until 1934. By then, most of the gang had died of various causes, and the only two surviving members were already in custody for unrelated crimes.
