These popular robberies will remain in the history forever.
Some robberies did not go unnoticed, either because of the amount of what was stolen or because of the audacity of the coup. Others remain in history because the dispossessed place seemed inviolable or the stolen work of art was of great value.
Many of these events had such an impact at the time that several were immortalized in books and movies.
Let’s take a look at some of the robberies that made history.
Theft of “La Gioconda”
On 21 August 1911, the Italian Vincenzo Peruggia, a former employee of the Louvre Museum in Paris, arrived dressed in work clothes similar to that of the maintenance staff, picked up the painting and separated the painting from the frame. He later left the museum with the painting hidden under his clothes.
The painting was recovered two and a half years later. Peruggia tried to sell the work to several Italian museums until it was denounced.
He spent one year in prison.
Assault on the Glasgow Train
In 1963 Ronald Biggs and Bruce Reynolds planned and carried out a robbery that was considered the “robbery of the century”.
Fifteen hooded men assaulted the postal train that travelled from London to Glasgow and took more than a hundred sacks of money inside. The total amount amounted to 2,631,784 pounds sterling, a colossal figure for that time.
Thirteen of the fifteen assailants were captured, but Ronald Biggs managed to escape from prison in 1965 and flee first to Australia and then to Brazil, where he lived, enjoying much of the loot.
Robbery of Drumlanrig Castle (Scotland)
It happened in Scotland on 27 August 2003.
Two men entered a tourist excursion visiting the Scottish castle of Drumlanrig, owned by the Duke of Buccleuch, managed to disconnect the alarm and took through the window of a kitchen the painting “The Madonna of the Spindle” by Leonardo Da Vinci, valued at 65 million dollars.
The painting was recovered in 2007 in Glasgow, and the thieves were arrested.
Dunbar Company Armored Truck in Los Angeles
On 12 September 1997, the largest robbery in U.S. history was perpetrated in Los Angeles.
The author, Allan Pace, was a safety inspector who knew precisely the truck schedules. He hired five thieves to ambush the security guards of the “Dunbar” company.
They took 19 million dollars, of which, even today, 10 million are missing.
Months later, the entire gang was caught by the police. The mastermind of the robbery Allan Pace was sentenced to 24 years in prison.
Theft of the painting “View of Auvers-Sur-Oise” by Paul Cezanne
Minutes before midnight on 31 December 1999, a thief entered the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, undetected to steal Paul Cezanne’s painting “View of Auvers-Sur-Oise.”
The work is valued at 6.5 million dollars.
It has not yet been recovered, and it is believed that it is in the hands of some private collector.
Theft from the Societe Generalé in Nice
One weekend in July 1976, the most spectacular robbery in the history of France took place. Albert Spaggiari and 15 accomplices robbed one of the country’s largest banks, using the city’s sewage system to access the vault of the Societe Generalé de Nice branch.
The total amount of the theft was never known since they emptied all the safe-deposit boxes in addition to the bank money.
After being caught, Spaggiari starred in a film escape by throwing himself out of a window in the middle of the trial. Albert Spaggiari and a succulent part of the loot were never heard again.
Theft of the Davidoff-Morini Stradivarius
In October 1995, in New York City, Davidoff-Morini Stradivarius reported the theft of a Stradivarius violin from the apartment of Erica Morini, a famous concert violin player.
Manufactured in 1727 by Antonio Stradivari, the “Davidoff-Morini Stradivarius” violin is valued at 3 million dollars and has not been found so far.
Boston Museum Robbery
On 18 March 1990, very early in the morning, two men dressed as police knocked on the door of the Boston Museum.
After entering, they tied up the two security guards.
The robbers took works by Rembrandt, Manet, Vermeer, Degas and an ancient Chinese vase.
It is estimated that the amount of the theft was 300 million dollars.
The works have not yet appeared, and the thieves were never identified.
Theft from Knightsbridge Security Deposit (England)
On 12 July 1987, two men requested to rent a safe to access the vault that contained all the safes.
Once inside, they handcuffed the security guards and the warehouse director.
They took the money and other values estimated at $110 million, violating almost all safe deposit boxes.
During the investigation, a fingerprint belonging to an Italian thief named Vareio Vicci was key to catching the gang a month later.
Theft of the Painting “The Scream” by Edvard Munch
On 22 August 2004, three men arrived at the Munch Museum in Norway and stole this work at gunpoint.
The museum offered a reward of 97 million euros.
The work was recovered on 31 August 2006 by the Norwegian police.
However, a few months later, it was revealed that the deterioration in the painting was found was such that the work was irreparable.
This was due to the humidity in the lower area that caused a discolouration that prevented the painting from being restored to its original state.
Robbery of the Central Bank of Fortaleza (Brazil)
On the weekend of August 6 and 7, 2005, a group of 10 thieves entered the vault of the Central Bank in Fortaleza, taking a loot of 165 million reais, approximately 70 million dollars.
Three months earlier, the gang had rented a house near the bank, and from there, they built an 80-meter tunnel directly to the vault.
They eventually arrested 6 of the ten assailants and recovered 47 of the 70 million. The other thieves and the remaining millions never appeared.
Bank of Baghdad Robbery
On the morning of 11 July 2007, when the bank of Baghdad workers went to work, they found that the front door was open.
The bank and its vault had been looted, 282 million dollars were missing… and the security guards who were supposed to guard the bank had disappeared.
Nothing else was ever known, neither the security guards nor the money.
Robbery of Antwerp Diamond Centre in Antwerp
It was one of the best-consummated robberies in history. On 16 February 2003, a gang of Italian thieves managed to overcome several high-security levels of the Antwerp Diamond Center in Belgium.
Without any alarm sounding, they arrived at where the loot was and took more than 100 million dollars in diamonds and gold and an unspecified amount in money.
The gang leader, Leonardo Notarbartolo, was the only one arrested. He spent ten years in prison. Neither jewellery nor money ever appeared.
Kennedy Airport Assault (New York)
The New York mobster Jimmy Burke received the information that large amounts of money had arrived at Kennedy Airport from Germany, so he planned to steal that money.
Burke had an informant who worked at the airport, who revealed to him the days the money arrived, where it was kept and what was at the level of airport security.
On Monday, 11 December 1978, at 3 a.m., his gang broke into the Lufthansa cargo terminal of the airport, heavily armed, and quickly took control.
They took $5 million, plus nearly $1 million in jewellery. Neither the money nor the jewellery has been recovered.
The unusual end of this coup is that many of the thieves involved in the event were killed in the months after the robbery.
It is believed that it was in the framework of an internal struggle within the gang to distribute the loot.