Hands up! Put all the money in the bag! Don’t move anyone or you’ll be shot!” these lines just pop up into our head whenever we hear the word bank heist. But these are some cliches. Now the bank heist has become an art for the criminal. People with fantasies like becoming billionaire within a night or having luxurious life without investing a drop of blood sweat or tears sometimes find bank robbery as an alluring way out. Thus history has witnessed some suspensive plus heart-stirring bank heists. Today we’ll be harking back to some of those cases. So here comes the 10 out of the ordinary bank heist.
For starters, I have DUNBAR ARMORED the inspector’s conspiracy (1997)”. This robbery resulted in a loss of $19 million. It is one of the most significant robberies in American history. This robbery was also carried out on the inside. This was orchestrated by a regional safety inspector from Dunbar Allen pace. To pull this off, he needed five men. As a result, on a Friday night, he enlisted the help of some of his childhood friends to bushwhack the guards at a stop cash drop vault. They loaded up a U-Haul and dispersed once they had access to the loot. Almost getting away with it all before one of the suspects made a blunder and ended up confessing. More than half of the money has been unaccounted even for to this day.
For the next course let’s dig into the story of The California Bank Heist in the United States of America. This robbery resulted in the loss of $30 million. Amil Dinsio, an Ohio professional criminal, gathered a group of six robbers and transported them to California in 1972. They rented a townhouse and plotted a bank robbery after hearing (mistakenly) that President Richard Nixon contained a multimillion-dollar reserve fund there. After carefully scrubbing down the townhouse, the crew dynamited their way into the safe, stole $30 million in cash and valuables, and escaped. The robbers have finally discovered thanks to a generous tip provided to a cab driver and fingerprints collected from the inside of the townhouse’s dishwasher.
After that “The Robbery of the British Bank of the Middle East” comes. The robbers took between $20 and $50 million. When Lebanon was in the middle of a civil war in 1976, a squad of robbers wanted to take advantage of the chaos. The squad used an explosion to break through the walls of a Catholic church and got into the adjacent British Bank of the Middle East in one of the most daring robberies in history. They brought licensed locksmiths with them to crack open the safe. Cash, gold bars, jewelry, and other valuables accumulated $44.5 million taken by the robbers. There was no recovery of the loot, and nobody was prosecuted. That robbed items are now worth over three times what they were in 1976.
Next, we have “The Robbery of the Northern Bank” on our plate. Treasures worth $50 million were stolen. Robbers disguised as police forces broke and into the homes of two bank managers in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the week before Christmas 2004. Their family members were kept captive, and the managers were forced to return to the office the next day as ordinary. The managers made the way in for the robbers into the bank after the workday ended, where they robbed approximately 26.5 million British pounds and other foreign currencies in the largest bank robbery in Irish history. Till now the case remains unresolved, and only one suspect has been prosecuted for laundering money up to this point.
Then comes the “Brink’s MAT Warehouse: The Fiery Robbery (1983)”. It occurred on November 26th, 1983, when six men broke into the company’s Heathrow airport bank. They were able to rob $30 million in diamonds, gold bars, and cash. Anthony Black, who was the facility’s security guard at that time, aided in the robbery. Their initial proposal called for just £3 million in cash. They were certain that they were under lock and key, but that changed when they discovered a whole other 3 tons of gold bars and diamonds. The case has been connected to several subsequent murders, and although most of the gang involved has since been prosecuted, the gold has never been retrieved.
As you can see things are getting us more and more Goosebumps as we are moving to our main courses or extremely thrilling true bank robbery stories. So get prepared for our next course “Fortaleza’s Banco Central Burglary”, also known as “The Underground Work (2006)” as your next course. This burglary netted a total of $69.8 million. It occurred in Brazil in 2005, when robbers pretended to be landscapers and leased commercial property in the center of the city. The robbery’s mastermind with a team consisting of 25 members then spent three months laying a 256-foot tunnel underneath the bank. The tunnel, which ran from a house to Banco Central, was fitted with wooden paneled walls and electric lights. They stole $79.1 million over the Sunday, allowing the robbers to flee with the money before authorities discovered it on Monday. Even though more than 40 people were arrested, together with the suspected criminal mastermind Luis Fernando Riberio, only $20 million was retrieved.
Now I bring you “The Burglary at the Securitas Warehouse”. In this case, $83 million was robbed. In 2006, at a security services company’s warehouse in Kent, the largest cash robbery in British history occurred. In preparation, an insider filmed the interior of the Securitas depot. The division manager was then abducted and held hostage by men wearing elaborate masks. He was taken to the warehouse by the robbers, who forced him to allow them entrance to the currency containers. The heist amounted to $83 million. Some of the criminals were apprehended despite their ingenious disguises, and the makeup artist who produced the masks became a key witness throughout the case.
With Knightsbridge Security Deposit Robbery of $98 Million, (1987) we will end the main course. A robbery masterminded by Valerio Viccei in 1987, perhaps the third biggest heist in history, made off with $98 million, the equivalent of nearly $200 million in today’s currency rates. Valerio took his Baretta to England after deciding that the heat in Italy, where he was wanted for 50 burglaries, was too much for him. The bank manager led them into the vault after they asked to rent a safe deposit box. The burglars subdued the manager and security guards before stealing all of the money. Regrettably for Viccei, a print of a bleeding finger from the scene of the crime helped to track him, thus, Viccei and his partners in crime were apprehended.
Finally, we will be moving to the desserts the two most bizarre bank robberies in history. Firstly, e Dar Es Salaam Bank Heist, a $282 million robbery. The burglary at Dar Es Salaam Bank, a private financial institution in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2007 is still a mystery. Why the bank contained too much American currency on hand to rob is unknown. Several bank guards are said to have orchestrated the robbery. The robbers, according to the government, had connections within local police and militias, allowing them to move across Baghdad’s numerous checkpoints undetected. However, there was insufficient evidence to back this up. The burglary in Baghdad occurred overnight and silently in 2007. When the workers returned to their work the next morning, they discovered the front door of the vault was open, the cash was gone, and the security guards were missing. The guards were arrested shortly after with a minor portion of the robbed money. There has been no further evidence provided about the money’s location as well as those involved.
And now with drum rolls, I present the last but not the least “The Family Business (2003)” is another name for Iraq’s Central Bank Robbery. The largest bank robbery in the world, with a total value of $920 million, is worth more than the rest mentioned till now combined. It all began on March 18th, the day before the United States began bombing Iraq. Several robberies resulted in the theft of nearly $1 billion from Iraq’s central bank. But in this case, no bandit masks, weapons, high-tech hackings, or hostages were present. A note signed by Saddam Hussein was the tool that made this heist possible. He made his son Qusay Hussein withdraw the funds, which also included boxes of $100 bills bearing a seal indicating that they were security funds. Loading the money into the trucks took about 5 hours. So, the guy went into the bank and then said, “My father needs this,” and they handed it to him even though the money didn’t belong to him. In the middle of a war, Qusay was killed by the United States military.
With this the full course heart-thriller 10 bank heist talks end. But there are still tons of heists that remained out of this list worth knowing about. But no matter how interesting it sounds do remember it is not an option. NOT AT ALL.
