Bank robbery is the criminal act of stealing from a bank, specifically while bank employees and customers are subjected to force, violence, or a threat of violence. This refers to robbery of a bank branch or teller, as opposed to other bank-owned property, such as a train, armored car, or (historically) stagecoach. It is a federal crime in the United States.
Since the invention of locomotives in the early 19th century, trains have often been the target of robbery, in which the goal is to steal money or other valuables. Train robbery was especially common during the 19th century and is commonly associated with gangs of outlaws in the American Old West. It has continued into the 21st century, with criminals usually targeting freight trains carrying commercial cargo, or targeting passengers of public transportation for their valuables.
On 20 December 2004, £26.5 million in cash was stolen from the headquarters of Northern Bank on Donegall Square West in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Having taken family members of two bank officials hostage, an armed gang forced the workers to help them steal used and unused pound sterling banknotes. The money was loaded into a van and driven away in two trips. This was one of the largest bank robberies in the history of the United Kingdom.
The Lufthansa heist was a robbery which took place at New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport on December 11, 1978. An estimated US$5.875 million was stolen, with $5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewelry, making it the largest cash robbery committed in the U.S. at the time.
Águila Blanca was the name given by Los Macheteros to its robbery of a Wells Fargo depot on September 12, 1983, a day coinciding with the birth date of Puerto Rican Nationalist Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos. The robbery took place in West Hartford, Connecticut, and netted more than US$7 million. At the time of the robbery, it was the largest cash heist in U.S. history.
The 2006 Securitas depot robbery in Tonbridge, England, was the UK's largest cash heist. It began with a kidnapping on the evening of 21 February 2006 and ended in the early hours of 22 February, when seven criminals stole almost £53 million. The gang left behind another £154 million because they did not have the means to transport it.
Edward James Adams was a notorious American criminal and spree killer in the Midwest. He murdered seven people—including three policemen—over a period of around 14 months and wounded at least a dozen others. At age 34, Adams was surrounded and then killed by police in Wichita, Kansas.
Charles Omer Makley, also known as Charles McGray and Fat Charles, was an American criminal and bank robber active in the early 20th century, most notably as a criminal associate of John Dillinger.
$17.3 million in cash was robbed from the Charlotte, North Carolina, regional office vault of Loomis, Fargo & Co. on the evening of October 4, 1997. The robbery was committed by Loomis vault supervisor David Scott Ghantt, his married girlfriend Kelly Campbell, Steven Eugene Chambers, his wife Michelle Chambers, Michael Gobbies, and four other co-conspirators. An FBI criminal investigation ultimately resulted in the arrest and conviction of eight people directly involved in the heist, as well as sixteen others who had indirectly helped them, and the recovery of approximately 88% of the stolen money.
The Pierre hotel robbery was a January 2, 1972 robbery at The Pierre in New York City. The robbery netted $3 million, and was organized by Samuel Nalo; Robert "Bobby" Comfort, an associate of the Rochester Crime Family; and Christie "the Tic" Furnari, an associate of the Lucchese Crime Family. The heist was carried out by several of Furnari's gang burglars. This robbery would later be listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest, most successful hotel robbery in history.
The Chelambra bank robbery in the Malappuram district of Kerala, India is considered to be one of the biggest and most sensational bank robberies in the crime history of Kerala. In the early hours of 30 December 2007, the robbers made a hole in the floor of the Kerala Gramin Bank and got away with 80 kilograms of gold and 5,000,000 rupees, a total value of 80 million Indian Rupees.
Vincent Asaro was an American mobster who served as a caporegime in the Bonanno crime family. Born in Queens, a borough of New York City, he was arrested by the FBI on January 23, 2014 and indicted on charges related to the 1978 Lufthansa heist at John F. Kennedy International Airport. He was found not guilty in November 2015 of the charges, and was also acquitted of all charges in the 1969 murder of Paul Katz, who owned a warehouse in which Asaro and another suspect housed stolen goods. He was also indicted in March 2017 and was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Herman Karl Lamm, known as Baron Lamm, was a German-American bank robber. A former Prussian Army soldier who immigrated to the United States, Lamm believed a heist required all the planning of a military operation. He pioneered the concepts of "casing" a bank and developing escape routes before conducting the robbery. Using a meticulous planning system called "The Lamm Technique", he conducted dozens of successful bank robberies from the end of World War I.
The Kimes–Terrill Gang was a prohibition era bank robbing gang, led by Matthew Kimes and Ray Terrill, active in the Midwestern United States during the 1920s. The gang was known, not only for their high-profile robberies, but for their frequent escapes from prison. The members were alleged to have sworn a blood oath to free each other from jail, should they ever be captured, or die in the attempt.
The Antwerp diamond heist, dubbed the "heist of the century", was the largest ever diamond heist and one of the largest robberies in history. Thieves stole loose diamonds, gold, silver and other types of jewelry valued at more than $100 million. It took place in Antwerp, Belgium, during the weekend of 15–16 February 2003. Though arrests were made and time was served, the stolen diamonds remain unrecovered.
In December 2012 and February 2013, a cyber-ring of criminals, operating in more than 24 countries, stole $45 million from thousands of automated teller machines (ATMs) in an ATM looting. Roughly $5 million was stolen around the world on December 21, 2012. Success led to expansion of the crime, when an additional $40 million was stolen on February 19, 2013.
The 1972 Montreal Museum of Fine Arts robbery, sometimes called the Skylight Caper, took place very early in the morning of September 4. Three armed robbers used a skylight under repair to gain entry to the museum from its roof, tied up the three guards on duty, and left on foot with 18 paintings, including a rare Rembrandt landscape and works by Jan Brueghel the Elder, Corot, Delacroix, Rubens, and Thomas Gainsborough, as well as some figurines and jewellery. The Brueghel,, and one of the stolen jewelry pieces, was returned by the thieves as an initiative to start ransom negotiations. None of the other works have been recovered. The robbers have never been arrested or even publicly identified, although there has been at least one informal suspect.
Bristol Bill was an Anglo-American burglar and counterfeiter. His most well known crimes include the 1845 Poughkeepsie Barge Robbery, involvement in the 1849 Drury Torpedo Case, and the 1850 stabbing of Vermont State's Attorney Bliss N. Davis at a sentencing hearing on counterfeiting charges.
The City bonds robbery of 1990 was a heist in which £291.9 million was stolen in London, England. The carefully planned operation made it seem at first as if a courier had been mugged on 2 May, yet the City of London Police soon realised that it was a sophisticated global venture which ended up involving participants such as the New York mafia, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), and Colombian drug barons. The robbery was one of the largest in world history.
