(sirens blaring)
- If I was a criminal, what
kind of criminal would I be?
I'd be like that
sexy bond villain.
Mm, but also-
- You know, I want to be
that guy in the background
that kind of like draws the map
and then I wait in my lair
for my minions to go out there
and handle the dangerous parts.
- It would have something
to do with accounting fraud.
(laughs)
But not on purpose, just
because I'm bad at math.
- I would pull off a
heist that stole money
from the people who
shouldn't have all the money.
But for me to be
involved in a heist,
the jackpot would have
to be astronomical.
(g*nf*re)
- [Narrator] Not every
criminal can pull off a heist,
but they all know that
the best crime pays big.
A heist is a high stakes robbery
that uses an elaborate plan
for a lot of numbers
in the pocketbook.
- I've met people who
said I pulled off a heist.
It was $500.
A heist to me is a couple
of hundred thousand.
- That's a lot of dough
for just a minute's work.
- [Louis] Million,
two million and more.
- [Narrator] A heist is
not for your everyday
low level scumbag.
- You have to have
nerves of steel.
You have to have a brain
that can plan something.
- Nobody sees the
others without a mask.
- And you have to
have good connections.
- Heists are often ripping off
someone who's incredibly
wealthy or a faceless bank.
- That's why heists
are so popular
because everybody
likes a good rogue.
- [Narrator] With
a combined total
of over $275 million
in stolen loot,
these are five of the
greatest heists in history
from the earliest
to the most recent,
stories of who
gets away with it,
but mostly who doesn't.
- Because if you
succeed at a heist,
we don't know who you are.
(exciting music)
(kids cheering)
- We've really been
indoctrinated from childhood
to have strong
desires for wealth.
So it's not surprising
that we'd be easily tempted
to get those things by
whatever means possible.
- Bruce Reynolds
is the mastermind
of the great train robbery.
He is the most unlikely
of masterminds.
- [Narrator] The
army rejected him
because of his weak eyesight.
He wanted to be a journalist,
but never got a chance to write.
He was a messenger for a
while and then a petty crook.
Bruce meets robber Ronnie
Biggs in Wandsworth Prison
and decides to
stop working alone
because Bruce is tired
of being a loser.
He wants to be a winner
in the big numbers game.
(upbeat music)
Our earliest heist story
starts in London, 1963.
Bank cards don't exist yet
and credit cards have
just been introduced.
Your options for stealing
large sums of money
are places that house
large sums of money,
but they have a ton of security.
Then Bruce gets a tip
about a Royal Mail train,
and he hatches a plan.
- There would be a
big chunk of money
in the mail bags on that train.
That money was on its way to
be destroyed down in England.
It was coming from Glasgow.
Therefore it meant that
they were used notes
and untraceable notes.
- [Narrator] Bruce's
plan is to stop the train
and remove the money without
anyone taking notice.
It's deceptively simple,
but it just might work.
They just need to
focus on the number 30.
- A heist is the most exciting
thing in the criminal world
as far as I'm concerned.
You walk away from it with a
little bit of like an F you
to like the powers that be.
A heist involves more planning
than a typical robbery.
You have to have somebody
who's the quote
unquote mastermind.
- [Narrator] Bruce
decides that the train
can be stopped for 30 minutes
before anyone gets suspicious.
So he gathers a
team of 15 thieves,
including Ronnie Biggs,
to haul out as many mail bags
as they can with no violence.
- The great train robbery,
it's like something
out of a cowboy movie.
(cowboys shouting)
(g*nf*re)
- [Narrator] It begins
in the dead of night
on August 8th, 1963.
15 men are watching the clock.
These men will have just 30
minutes to try to pull off
the biggest train robbery
in British history.
Just after 3:00 AM,
the driver of the Royal Mail
Express sees a red signal,
not knowing the green signal
had been covered by the robbers.
- Onboard come a
bunch of the robbers.
They make it very clear to the
people working on the train
this is a robbery and that
they shouldn't resist.
The only resistance they
get is from Jack Mills
who's the train driver.
(dramatic music)
And because he resists them,
they whack him on the head.
So that was the first c*ck-up.
- [Narrator] But time won't
stop because you make a mistake.
The train has 12 cars,
but the g*ng are only
interested in number two
behind the locomotive,
known as the high
value packages coach.
Racing against the clock,
they uncouple the other 10 cars
and to avoid any witnesses,
Bruce has to move
the train half a mile
to the designated
unloading spot.
- [Man] Let's get a move on!
Let's go, faster!
- [Narrator] With
only 10 minutes left,
the g*ng form a human chain
moving 120 bags of cash
weighing an estimated 2.5 tons.
It's been 30 minutes and
the coach isn't empty,
but wisely, they
stick to Bruce's plan.
Eight bags are left behind.
They're so quick that the
other 68 postal workers
in the 10 other coaches have
no idea what's happened.
(snoring)
- [Man] Quick, before
the cops show up.
- [Narrator] 15 guys split an
estimated 150,000 pounds each,
equivalent to $3.8
million today.
At the time, the average
yearly salary in Britain
is about 1,000 pounds.
That means each crew member
makes close to 150 years
worth of wages in the
space of 30 minutes.
- When we did a
heist, we had a plan.
If we all got chased
and we had to split up,
who are we gonna contact?
Where we going?
There had to be a safe
house, maybe we'd meet.
- [Narrator] The safe
house is the place
where Bruce planned for the
g*ng to divvy up their loot,
confirm their alibis and make
sure they cover their tracks.
- Off they go to the
farm that they have hired
about half an hour away.
They feed the cat, they
play a bit of Monopoly.
- [Narrator] Bruce and
his g*ng have no plans
of going straight to jail.
But when the police go public
and comb a 30 mile radius
from the robbery site,
the g*ng has to scramble.
- They were looking
for a hideout
within 30 miles of Cheddington
and they found it here
at this farmhouse,
and it was because it's
so completely fitting
the police description, that
tip-off named this place.
- [Narrator] As these
police photographs show,
the farm was left in
a state of disarray.
Fingerprints confirmed that
Bruce and his band of crooks
are responsible for the robbery,
but they're nowhere to be found.
- This is a team
of 15 individuals
who then flee around the globe.
A manhunt takes place on a
scale not witnessed before.
- [Narrator] Within a month,
the g*ng's safe house
becomes a tourist attraction.
The owner of the farm
charges an entrance fee,
and the police, embarrassed
with the enormity of the crime,
double down on the hunt
to capture the culprits.
- They carry on searching
until they find
almost all of them.
(cameras clicking)
- [Narrator] Some members
were never identified,
but 12 were convicted
within a year of the heist.
The judge said it would
be positively evil
to show leniency in the
country's biggest robbery,
so he dishes out
double penalties
for a total of 307
years of imprisonment.
Mastermind Bruce Reynolds
manages to evade the law
for five years.
- He went to Mexico for
awhile, then to Canada.
And then he came back to England
where he was eventually caught.
- [Narrator] He spends
10 years in lockup
before being released in 1978.
But one convicted
man has no intention
of serving his full term,
Ronnie Biggs and his
tale of three continents,
one baby and 35
years on the run.
- Ronnie Biggs is
perhaps the most famous
of all of the great
train robbers.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] Three weeks
after the great train robbery,
Ronnie is arrested and
sentenced to 30 years.
He served 15 months
back in Wandsworth
before scaling a prison wall
and dropping onto a
mattress on the roof
of an awaiting removal van.
- [Man] Woohoo, freedom!
- [Narrator] From there,
he begins his new life
of living on the lam.
(tires squealing)
(dramatic music)
- He got plastic surgery in
Paris to change his appearance.
He moved to Australia.
Then when the police
were after him there,
he moved to Brazil.
- [Narrator] He becomes a
musician and a media darling
who'll talk about the heist
to anyone who will listen.
- The only happy issue
from the train robbery
is the fact that semi
honest money has arisen.
When I say semi
honest, I mean money
that had been paid by
newspapers for our stories.
- [Narrator] After 10 years
living the high life in Rio,
Scotland Yard shows up
and tries to arrest him.
But luckily, Mr. Bigshot
got his girlfriend pregnant.
- Under Brazilian law,
if somebody has a child
under the age of 21,
they can't be extradited
to another country.
- So the police, they knew
where Ronnie Biggs was,
but they couldn't get him.
- [Narrator] He becomes
an international celebrity
and begins hosting tourists.
- He lived this almost
charmed life in Brazil,
inviting people to buy a
ticket to his barbecues,
and he would tell stories
of the great train robbery,
and you could have your
photo taken with him.
He's perhaps the quintessential
criminal celebrity.
- [Narrator] In 1981,
a g*ng of ex-soldiers
kidnap him outside a restaurant
and bundle him onto a yacht.
They want a reward for
bringing him back to Britain,
but their yacht breaks
down in Barbados.
(mischievous music)
- [Duncan] Barbados
authorities say
that he's been brought
there illegally
and they allow him
to go back to Brazil.
(cheering)
- So Ronnie Biggs not only
managed to escape from prison
and evade the authorities
by moving around the world,
he even managed to evade
a kidnapping attempt.
No one could touch him.
- In our society, few of us
have great wealth and power,
but we can relate to
someone who has little
but does a lot with it.
- [Narrator] After
35 years of freedom,
72 is the number that
sends him back to Britain.
Mr. Bigshot announces that
he'll return to the UK.
- People saw this
figure arriving
and barely able to function,
and I think people
felt why lock him up?
- [Narrator] He's 72 years
old and not in good health.
Ronnie is immediately arrested
and sent back to the slammer.
Eight years and numerous
health scares later,
he's released just
before his 80th birthday.
He dies four years later.
- Most of the details about
the great train robbery
have been uncovered,
but there's one detail that
remains a little bit mysterious.
Who was the inside man?
(beeping)
- 99 out of 100 heists,
they have an inside guy.
People come to you for
all different reasons.
They get in credit card debt.
They get in over their
heads with gambling.
Maybe they route
trucks and they say,
"Hey, at five o'clock, this
truck leaves this place
and goes here."
It's like you worked
there for 20 years,
you know everything.
- [Narrator] Someone shared
train schedules and contents
that were critical in
the great train robbery,
and there's been many
guesses about his identity.
- One is supposedly somebody
working in the post office
who tipped them off.
But I think we
will never know who
the missing character was.
- [Narrator] And for
our next heister,
working on the inside means
he's practically invisible.
- Have I stole
anything from work?
It's not stealing if you
take a ream of paper.
It's paper that I was
gonna use there anyway.
(laughs)
- Have I ever stolen
something from work?
Yes, all the time.
- I steal toilet paper
all the time from my work.
Yeah, that (bleeps) expensive.
More accurately, my
(bleeps) are expensive.
(laughs)
- [Narrator] Our
second great heist
takes us 34 years forward
to Los Angeles, 1997.
Allen Pace is a young
American man from Compton.
He has a job that pays $25
an hour, which isn't bad,
but at work it's like
he doesn't even exist.
- It's very tempting if
you're working in a place
where you see hundreds
of thousands of dollars
slipping through your fingers,
and you think, "What's
that all about?"
- In 1997, Allen Pace is
working for Dunbar Armored
as a sort of safety officer,
so he's looking after things
like fire extinguishers,
those sorts of things.
- [Man] Okay, that one works.
- Alan in his job
has been very busy
for the last two years
gathering insider information.
(beeping)
He knows what the
security guards are doing.
He knows where the security
cameras are and when they move.
- [Narrator] Because
he's invisible at work,
nobody there notices that
Allen's casing the joint.
He's cool, calculating and
sets the pace for the heist.
- Because he's gathering
the information,
he's able to come
up with a plan.
- The Pacemaker recruits
five childhood friends
and supplies them with
detailed floor plans,
ski masks, pistols, a
shotgun and radio headsets.
But then disaster strikes.
He suddenly gets noticed at work
and is fired for something
completely unrelated.
- [Man] You're fired.
- [Man] Why me?
- When he's fired
out of the blue,
he has to pull his
plans forwards rapidly.
(tense orchestral music)
- The next night, the
Pacemaker and his g*ng
go to a house party
to establish an alibi.
- Creating this alibi, you
know, that you have a party
was smart on this
particular occasion,
the level of planning
and daring involved.
- [Narrator] Then they
slip out of the house
and into their robber gear.
- His key card still was valid,
so they get in to
Dunbar Armored.
- [Narrator] The employees
are subdued with duct tape
and the g*ng gets their
money with no issue.
- When I did a heist, I wanted
the biggest g*n there was,
I wanted a 357 with
a six inch barrel
or a nickel-plated 45
that shines off the sun.
I wanted that person
to be so scared
because I knew that if
they didn't fight back,
there wouldn't be any injuries.
It wasn't like we
wanted to hurt anybody.
- [Narrator] After the heist,
the Pacemaker and his crew
take their $18.9 million bounty
into a 14 foot long safe space
and head back to the party.
It's one of the biggest
cash heists in US history.
After the Dunbar heist,
LA cops and the FBI
pull out all the stops.
Because he was just fired,
Allen's name comes up
in the investigation.
They start running surveillance
but the Pacemaker stays cool.
There's no flashy purchases,
and he's living with his mom.
- [Woman] Sonny, dinner's ready.
- [Narrator] The only
thing the cops have
is part of a tail light
recovered at the scene.
They run a forensic
investigation
and determine it's
from the getaway car.
- I think the ideal getaway car
would actually be
not like a nice car,
like, a Honda Accord.
- My brain immediately
is like Lamborghini,
but then people are
probably gonna spot me.
I don't think I'd get away.
- A Nissan Cube because
not a single person
is gonna be like that
person is a criminal.
A Nissan cube says like dad
going through a midlife crisis
and chose very wrong.
- We ain't going
in there with a GTO
with the engine sticking
out of the hood.
That's for the movies.
You just need to get away.
(comical music)
- The getaway car
was immortalized
by US bank robber John Dillinger
when he wrote a
letter to Henry Ford
thanking him for
making such a fast car.
John Dillinger's Ford Model A
was put up for auction in
2010 and sold for $165,000.
Bonnie and Clyde used
a Ford V8 De Luxe
during their final crime spree.
At the time, it was the
fastest car on the road,
despite the 160 b*llet holes
and cost about 50% of the
average person's annual income.
Allen Pace's getaway car is
a humble 14 foot long Uhaul.
You can rent for
about $50 a day.
It helped him evade the law
for more than two years,
but then his friend Eugene
pays someone in cash
and leaves the Dunbar
straps on the bundle.
It's a stupid mistake
and it gets reported.
- It seems to be that we
have some amazing heisters,
but one of the heisters
is a rubbish businessmen
at the other end.
- [Narrator] The cops
run Eugene's name
and discover he rented
a 14 foot long Uhaul
the day before the crime.
That 14 feet may have helped
Alan carry out the heist,
but it also ended up
being his downfall
because Eugene becomes a snitch.
(sirens blaring)
- When the law finally
caught up with us,
it wasn't on account
of any mistakes
we had made during a robbery.
It was on account of a rat.
You know, a guy snitches,
and you can't control that.
I would never do that.
Like, what the (bleeps)?
- [Narrator] 14 Feet
and $18.9 million
get Allen Pace 24
years in lockup.
- I can relate to
Alan Pace's story.
I live in Los Angeles.
You're constantly being exposed
to what a wealthy
lifestyle looks like.
That's gonna create a temptation
to obtain these things
by any means necessary.
- There's never been a time when
the gap between the
richest and the poorest
has been as great.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] The
average American
makes about $50,000 a year.
Meanwhile, Tesla
founder Elon Musk
once made 11 billion in a year.
(cash register ringing)
Amazon founder Jeff
Bezos' base salary
is $82 million a year,
but with a net worth of
approximately $200 billion,
he's the richest
man in the world.
The 50 richest Americans
are worth as much
as the poorest 165
million Americans.
It's no wonder we like to
root for the little guy.
(laughing)
- The reason we root
for the little guy
is because we are
the little guy.
- Nobody wants to see like,
Goliath crushing David.
Like, that's not fun.
- It's like the
Robin Hood effect.
Even though technically what
they're doing isn't great,
you still want that person
to win versus you know,
the corporation with
the evil man up top.
- Boy do we love to
stick it to the man.
In a society where there's
a lot of inequality,
there's going to
be resentment bred.
- [Narrator] Allen Pace
was able to take advantage
of being a faceless employee.
Even now, no image
of him can be found,
and he's out of prison.
Anonymity and patience is key
when planning your next heist,
especially if you're planning
the most complicated
heist in history.
- If I was presented with a lock
with a hundred
million combinations,
I would give up after three.
- I would try six combinations,
and if I didn't get it in that,
I'm hiring Charlize Theron.
- If a lock had a hundred
million combinations,
I would give up immediately
unless my cat was
behind that door
and I had to save him,
then I would never give up.
(locks rattling)
- [Narrator] Imagine a lock
with 100 million
possible combinations.
If you punch in a new
number every 10 seconds,
that lock could take
almost 32 years.
But 100 million combinations
don't scare our next heister,
because his diamond heist has
been 40 years in the planning.
(seagulls calling)
This is Leonardo Notarbartolo.
He was born in Palermo, Italy,
and he was destined
to be a thief.
As a child, he's sent out
by his mother to buy milk.
- [Man] Mmm, milk.
- [Narrator] Leonardo
finds the shopkeeper asleep
and takes the 5,000 Lira,
or the equivalent of
about $8 from the till.
It will get him in
trouble with his mother,
(child crying)
but he's discovered his calling.
- He has his sights
set on jewels.
- [Narrator] 40 Years later,
Leo's plan to steal
diamonds is in full swing.
He moves to the diamond
district in Antwerp, Belgium,
and poses as a gem importer.
- He starts to shadow jewelers
to see what their
mannerisms are.
He sets himself up as this
suave, charming jeweler.
- [Man] How you doin'?
- He is a real gentleman.
- People trusted him
and didn't suspect him
because they saw him going
in and out of the
building every single day.
- [Narrator] Apart
from his carets,
Leonardo's greatest
assets are his good looks,
his charm and his
million dollar smile.
Unlike Allen Pace,
who was an inside man,
Leonardo has to
become an inside man
to break into one of the
most sophisticated vaults
on the planet, holding over
125 million in diamonds.
- He was able to gain
access to the place
where the diamonds were stored
and not create a suspicion.
- [Narrator] He rents
a safety deposit box
in the same vault
as the diamonds.
It's just one of 189,
but it gives him the opportunity
to launch a painstaking
surveillance mission
using a digital camera
hidden in a pen.
- He gathers all the
information he needs
to mastermind this plan.
- 18 Months and hundreds
of photos later,
Leonardo is ready to strike.
(upbeat music)
Antwerp is home to the world's
only specialized
diamond police force
dubbed the Diamond Squad.
It's got 60 surveillance cameras
within its three
square block area,
and at its heart is a vault
two stories underground and
with 10 layers of security.
About 80% of the world's rough
diamonds pass through here,
and $3 billion worth of
sales happen annually.
If you're going to try the
ultimate diamond heist,
this is the place.
- When I started
putting a team together,
I put guys together that
know what they're doing.
Now I got guys who knew
how to bypass alarms.
I got guys who know how
to use a blow torch.
I got guys who know how to
cut a hole in the ceiling.
- [Narrator] To
break into the vault
with 100 million combinations,
100 Million Leo put together
a team of Italian thieves,
the Genius, an alarm specialist,
the King of Keys, a
wizened locksmith,
the Monster, a
skilled electrician
and the muscle of the crew,
and Speedy, a friend
who will remain
outside in the
getaway car with Leo,
listening to police scanners.
- The guys that
you take on a heist
have to have big, big cojones.
These guys aren't
afraid of anything.
Somebody nervous makes mistakes.
You got live weapons,
we're not trained.
We learned how to use
g*ns in our basement
by sh**ting at telephone books.
(g*nf*re)
- [Narrator] After
more than 40 years
of learning the craft
and two and a half
years of surveillance,
Leonardo sends his team
in on a Saturday night.
They make it undetected
into the ante
chamber of the vault.
Now they've got to defeat
10 layers of security.
The massive steel door
weighs in at three tons,
and the first layer of security
is a closed circuit security
camera that guards it.
(dramatic music)
- They managed to
disable the CCTV
and insert archive
footage in there instead.
(clicking)
- [Narrator] The next layer,
the vault door's
combination dial
has 100 million
possible combinations.
Thanks to Leo's
pen camera footage,
the team knows the right one,
but they still need a
one-of-a-kind one-foot-long key.
That's security layer three.
- There were then
seismic alarms,
and these are silent alarms,
so you don't even know if
you set them off or not.
- They used a kind of
hairspray to damage the sensor,
which would set off an alarm
if there was any movement.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] After they
managed to open the door,
they use an aluminum device
to deceive a magnetic sensor.
Then they break through
a locked steel grate
and disable another camera.
- They then are faced
by thermal sensors
sensing their body heat.
They also have to
overcome light sensors,
so everything has to
be done in darkness.
- [Narrator] They only
flick on flashlights
for a second or two at a time.
To the final layer,
Leo gave them the code
for a key pad that controls
the internal alarms.
Against all odds, the team
defeats 10 layers of security
and enter the vault.
- So they have to use
a custom made drill
to get in to the
various security boxes
and they managed to empty
109 out of 189 boxes.
- [Narrator] Believe it or not,
100 Million Leo steals $100
million worth of diamonds.
- [Ruth] That's a
successful heist.
- Notarbartolo spent
years both figuring out
how to break into the safe,
but also ingratiating
himself within the community
so that no one
would suspect him.
He really had a long game.
- [Narrator] The long
game is when a criminal
takes a long time
to plan a heist
with the expectation
of a long payout.
The Antwerp diamond
heist isn't detected
until Monday morning
when the vault is opened.
- You did it, you pulled
it off, you've got it.
Then you bring yourself back
down and you try to think,
"Is everybody all right?
Did anybody leave
anything behind?"
- [Narrator] For all of
100 Million Leo's genius,
he's undone by $5.
Bags of garbage left in the
woods tie him to the heist.
- They bought a sandwich nearby,
and I think one of them
still had the receipt.
Who would have thought
a discarded sandwich
was enough to get
the police onto you?
- [Narrator] A $5 sandwich
gets 100 Million Leo
a 10 year prison sentence,
but he gets out four years
early for good behavior.
Good behavior and a long game
can be what separates
masterminds from th*gs,
and they transform a French
thief into a media darling.
- If I was gonna steal
a famous work of art,
it would probably be a
Vincent van Gogh's "Irises".
I could probably look at that
every single day of my life.
- If I was gonna steal
a famous work of art,
it would be that banana
because people would
expect it the least.
Make sure the laser grid's
up for the "Mona Lisa",
but like, don't worry
about the banana.
- I would steal
the statue of David
because if you've
seen his genitalia,
it would make me feel
better about myself.
- [Narrator] Parisian
born Vjeran Tomic
claims his devious tenancies
started when he was a kid.
His parents sent him to live
with his grandmother in
Bosnia for a few years,
and he became skilled at
scaling Mostar's stone bridges,
and then dropping into the
water below just for kicks.
(comical whistling music)
At the age of 10, Vjeran
does this first heist,
climbing 10 feet through the
open window of a library.
He steals two beautiful and
very expensive antique books,
which a disapproving
friend later returns.
But Vjeran is hooked.
When he moves back to Paris,
he wants to surround
himself with beautiful
and expensive things.
- At an art gallery,
he is blown away
by the beauty of the art
that he sees as a teenager.
- He was fascinated by Renoir
and wanted to be a painter,
and his father had told him
nobody makes a
living as a painter.
- Teen rebellion kicks in.
He starts going with
friends to Père Lachaise,
the huge cemetery in Paris,
where he develops
his acrobatic skills,
jumping from mausoleum
to mausoleum.
- [Narrator] From the age of 16,
he's scaling the facades of
multi-story buildings in Paris.
He's seen leaping
between rooftops
and uses crossbows
and carabiners
to crawl into apartments while
the occupants are asleep.
He's given the nickname of
L'araignee, or the Spider Man.
- He really enjoys the
finer things in life,
fine cheeses and wines and
this extends into artwork.
- [Narrator] One
night, he has a dream
that he steals five
masterpieces from a museum.
He takes it as a sign that he's
about to do something great.
In 2017, "Salvator Mundi"
by Leonardo da Vinci
sold for $450.3 million.
Every year, an estimated 6
billion worth of art is stolen.
Art theft is comparable in
dollar value to arms dealing,
drug trafficking and
money laundering.
People love art.
- Sold to you.
- [Narrator] And so do thieves.
- They steal it either because
it's been ordered by somebody
or in order to sell it.
But there are some people
who steal paintings
because they just enjoy
having an extraordinary
painting in their possession.
- Lots of crimes are described
as victimless crimes.
In the case of heists,
there there's no one
individual that walks away
hurt because of insurance,
so they're not hurt in the
long-term by what occurs.
- [Narrator] It's 2010.
Paris's Museum of Modern Art
is home to more than
15,000 masterpieces
and a destination for
800,000 tourists each year.
Only Spider Man isn't a tourist.
He's on a scouting mission.
- Scouting missions are
absolutely essential
if you're going to carry
out a proper heist.
You have to do your homework.
- [Narrator] Outside
he notices one window
is blocked from the security
cameras by a parapet.
- [Man] Ooh la la,
that is a nice statues.
- [Narrator] Which
during the day
is used by local skateboarders.
Inside he sees motion sensors
that flick from green to red
whenever anyone passes by,
but many are stuck on green.
Full of fearlessness and daring,
Spider Man starts to weave
his web of deception.
- There are things that
happen in your life
that may be drain
you of certain fears.
One guy climbs a mountain,
another woman goes skydiving.
You know, those are to
overcome certain fears.
Same thing when it
came to a heist.
It becomes part of your life.
Your life is a
crime in progress.
- [Narrator] Paris,
the city of light.
But if you want to steal
art, you need darkness.
It's midnight on May 14th, 2010,
the Spider Man is on
the hunt for his prey
and the number
eight looms large.
Out of sight of the
security cameras,
Spider Man dabs the window frame
with paint-stripping acid.
It's taken him eight nights,
but he's finally able
to pull out the screws.
- He uses suction cups
to remove the glass
and he has bolt cutters
to cut through the
metal grate inside.
- [Narrator] He climbs inside,
then climb straight back out.
- What criminals do is they
see if the alarm goes off
and that's exactly
what Tomic did.
He wandered by the scene just
to see if anybody appeared.
- [Narrator] He
waits 15 minutes.
When no police turn up
and the motion sensors
are still on green,
he goes back in and sets his
sights on the priceless art.
- He had been commissioned
to steal a Leger.
He stole it and
while he was in there
and he noticed, oh, a
Modigliani, a Matisse,
a Picasso and a Braque
and took five paintings
while he was inside.
- He then leaves with
this bundle of artwork
and drives away.
- [Narrator] When the police
arrived the next morning,
they find five empty
picture frames.
With an estimated total
of 104 million euros,
or about $112 million,
there hasn't been an art heist
of this magnitude in a decade.
- The great problem
with art crimes
is that there's no
way of putting it
on the open market
and selling it.
- [Narrator] That
means even an art thief
working alone needs accomplices.
- You gotta have a fence.
You may as well steal nothing
if you don't have a fence.
- [Narrator] The
fence is a person
who takes the stolen loot
off the hands of the robber,
stashes it until
everything cools down
and then resells it
to individual buyers.
- I would go to
my fence and say,
"What would you
give me on this?"
And he might tell me "I'd give
you 20 cents on the dollar."
Maybe I'll try to
get them up to 30,
30 cents and we'll
negotiate to a quarter,
but whatever it is, we made
that deal before I robbed it
so that I know as soon as it's
done I can take it to him.
(tense music)
- [Narrator] The
public wants to know
who stole the five paintings.
- [Man] Most expensive work
taken appears to be this Picasso
worth an estimated $28 million.
- [Narrator] And one year
later, they get their answer.
- This wasn't a big
team of art thieves.
No, this is the
French Spider Man.
- The Spider Man is working
with antiques dealer
Jean-Michel Corvez
to hide the paintings
and sell at a later date.
Spider Man seems safe, but
he can't keep his mouth shut.
- He started boasting at a party
about his successful heist.
- I just did the
most amazing thing.
- As a result, he got reported
and ultimately he
confessed to the police.
- If you're planning
a big heist,
you better hope you also
have the personality trait
of being good at
keeping a secret.
(man shushing)
- [Narrator] The
prosecutor proclaims
that Vjeran stole masterpieces
from all of humanity.
(speaking French)
- [Narrator] But the press,
thrilled by his
acrobatic prowess,
catapult him to
superhero status.
- And I think people are
sympathetic to the fact
that he's carried out
this extraordinary crime
and therefore not too upset,
so the only sentence
he gets is eight years.
- [Narrator] An eight day
job gets Vjeran eight years,
which is surprisingly lenient
for our eight-legged thief.
The trial was in 2017, which
means he gets out in 2025.
The stolen paintings
were never found,
so it's possible they
will be sold for millions
once Vjeran and his
accomplice get out of jail.
But if you're playing
the long game,
like 100 Million Leo
and the Spider Man,
how old is too old
for that one last job?
- What do I think the
average age of a heister is?
I bet like 22.
- The average age of a
heister would be about 45.
- I feel like being a heister
is like a young
man's game, right?
Because you gotta be
able to like be flexible
and avoid those like,
lasers and stuff.
- [Narrator] What's
the difference
between a perfect heist
and a total disaster?
275 years and a couple of pints.
(dramatic music)
This hole is what the Hatton
Garden safe deposit staff
first saw when they
opened the vault
in London's diamond
district on April 7th, 2015.
But the cops have a lead.
The security video shows two
men disguised as gas workers
scoping the outside
of the vault.
A white van pulls up.
Additional crew
members unload gear.
This is all the
police had to go on.
And all the heisters had was 7%.
- Let's say you're
doing a business
or a bank or something
that's closed
for like a three-day
holiday weekend.
You get in there and you've
got the whole weekend.
- [Narrator] It's
April 3rd, 2015,
Good Friday of Easter weekend.
After a successful scouting
mission the day before,
an alarm inside the
vault is triggered
and the Hatton Garden
robbers spring into action.
- They had an alarm specialist
who was known only
to them as BASIL,
which stood for the "best
alarm specialist in London."
He got them into the building.
(beeping)
- [Narrator] The alarm
sends out an emergency text.
A security guard
arrives at the scene.
He checks the front doors
and sees that they
are still locked.
- False alarm
happen all the time,
so they're quite used to it.
Off he goes.
- [Narrator] The guard is
unaware that beneath his feet,
burglars are currently
drilling through
the concrete wall of the vault.
They create a hole
that is 20 inches deep,
18 inches wide and
10 inches high.
But the hole opens up
to a heavy cabinet.
They have to come back the
next day with a battering ram,
(metal clanking)
and are able to knock
the cabinet over.
(cameras clicking)
They ransack just
7% of the vault,
opening 73 of the 999
safe deposit boxes.
In this case, 7% isn't
such a meager number.
It equates to an estimated
$20 million worth
of diamonds gold and jewelry.
It's the biggest heist
in British history.
- [Man] Diamond traders in this
famous street were stunned.
- People obviously who
probably aren't insured
have lost everything.
- [Narrator] The investigation
is led by the flying squad,
an elite unit within London's
metropolitan police department.
- It's organized,
it's sophisticated.
It's people who have planned it.
They know how they
were gonna go about
committing this crime.
- [Narrator] But the police
have little or nothing to go on.
There are no fingerprints,
no forensic traces,
and on the CCTV outside,
the thieves were careful
not to show their faces.
- Once you got what
you went in for,
that's the first time when you
feel like you got away clean,
the excitement
level's like up there.
- [Narrator] But that
excitement doesn't last long.
The diamonds are gone,
but the heisters can be
found in the numbers.
In this case, automatic
number plate recognition.
- They committed
the perfect theft,
but everything that happened
after that was a disaster.
(tense music)
- [Narrator] The thieves
may have disabled
the CCTV cameras
inside the vault,
but they didn't disable
the 160 security cameras
that monitor the
streets outside.
- CCTV in London is
really very extensive.
An average Londoner can
expect to be captured on CCTV
300 times in a single day.
There are well over
half a million cameras
scattered through London.
- It's said that for
every 12th person,
there's one CCTV camera.
It's very difficult
to go anywhere without
being identified.
- [Narrator] These
cameras capture the image
of a distinctive white Mercedes
with a black roof and
black alloy wheels
making repeat trips to
the Hatton Garden area.
- As a result, the
license plate is matched
to a Kenny Collins,
so the police track him down.
- [Narrator] The police
attach a tracking device
to the Mercedes,
which leads them to two
other career criminals,
Brian Reader and Terry Perkins.
They track their mobile
phones across London,
which leads to the three
of them being filmed
by the police inside
the Castle Pub.
- They hear these
heisters boasting
about the fact that they
have committed the greatest,
the biggest effing
robbery of all time.
They are really
proud of themselves.
- [Narrator] But loose lips
are nothing to be proud of.
In fact, for the
Hatton Garden heisters,
they're full of regret.
- Have I ever revealed too
much after a few drinks?
Uh, yeah.
(laughs)
Hasn't everybody?
- I have 100% revealed too much
after drinking many a drinks.
- That's why apple-flavored
vodka is a big no for me.
(laughs)
- If you want to plan a heist,
you should select
guys for your team
that are teetotalers.
- [Man] This
morning, 12 addresses
have been raided across
London and Kent area.
- [Narrator] While
searching the homes
of the Hatton Garden suspects,
the police find a copy of
"Forensics for Dummies"
and on a computer, a
series of Google searches
on industrial drills.
But what shocks the
world is the discovery
that the perpetrators
are no spring chickens.
- The Hatton Garden heisters
were largely in their 70s.
This was an elderly team.
- Well done.
Once you retire, you
have to find a hobby,
so if it's stealing $20
million worth of jewelry,
good on them.
- Just thinking about my
grandpa who's also 70,
he like seriously hurt himself
trying to go pee
the other day, so
- One of them had diabetes
and had to have injections
during the course
of the burglary.
Others had urinary problems.
- [Man] Ooh, I gotta pee!
- [Narrator] But despite
their infirmaries,
they still managed to bust
their way into the vault.
- When the arrests
started being made,
they became known as
the diamond wheezers
because they were elderly.
The French papers called them
the granddad's g*ng.
(speaking French)
- [Narrator] The diamond geezers
really are in a
league of their own.
Research shows that
those who heist
typically have a solid
decade of experience
above and beyond
the common thief.
Typical robbers and thieves
are between the
ages of 24 and 27,
whereas the average age of
a heister is 36.1 years.
But the diamond geezers blow
those numbers out of the water
with an average age of 69 years.
- [Man] Has anybody
seen my walker?
- [Narrator] And a
combined age of 275 years.
But all that potential
wisdom doesn't balance out
their ignorance of modern
surveillance technology.
- The judge told them
that they were seen as
analog criminals
in the digital age
because they were unaware
of some of the ways
that they might be traced.
- [Narrator] 14 million pounds
is stolen from Hatton Garden
and only 4.2 million
is recovered.
If there is still some
loot stashed away,
one can only hope the
long game isn't too long
for these old farts.
Today, the security
measures around banks,
vaults and museums have
gotten too advanced
for most heisters.
- [Duncan] The main
criminal intelligence now
goes into cyber crime.
It's just a bloke
sitting at a laptop,
transferring money
into his bank account.
- [Narrator] On
August 10th, 2021,
hackers stole $613
million in cryptocurrency,
the largest heist
of its kind to date.
Cyber crime is not nearly
as exciting a story to tell,
but it's the future
of great heists,
using new and more
sophisticated ways
of sticking it to the man.
- The evolution of a criminal
is like the evolution
of any other industry.
So if you're not
scared of the number,
then there's nothing different.
It's just a bigger take.
The difference is how
big you can think.
- Sometimes people can just
jack crazy amounts of money,
go full Robin Hood and like,
just to give the
finger to the system.
If I was gonna be on the run,
I'd probably go
somewhere tropical,
just because if you're
gonna be on the run,
you might as well
do it with a tan.
- Seems pretty important
to have an inside man,
'cause most of the stuff that
you want is on the inside,
so it'd help to
have a man there.
- What kind of getaway
car would I drive?
I would say a souped
up Dodge Caravan
with a couple of baby seats.
Yeah, you want to definitely
confuse the police.
(upbeat music)
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01x08 - Heists
Watch/Buy Amazon
This series is loaded with mind-blowing factoids and stats, entertaining expert interviews, and infographics injected with cheeky humor.
This series is loaded with mind-blowing factoids and stats, entertaining expert interviews, and infographics injected with cheeky humor.