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.
Kathy Boudin was an American radical leftist who served 23 years in prison for felony murder based on her role in the 1981 Brink's robbery. Boudin was a founding member of the militant Weather Underground organization, which engaged in bombings of government buildings to express opposition to U.S. foreign policy and racism. The 1981 robbery resulted in the killing of two Nyack, New York, police officers and one security guard, and serious injury to another security guard; Boudin was arrested attempting to flee after the getaway vehicle she occupied was stopped by police. She was released on parole in 2003. After earning a doctorate, Boudin became an adjunct professor at Columbia University.
Ronald Arthur Biggs was an English criminal who helped plan and carry out the Great Train Robbery of 1963. He subsequently became notorious for his escape from prison in 1965, living as a fugitive for 36 years, and for his various publicity stunts while in exile. In 2001, Biggs returned to the United Kingdom and spent several years in prison, where his health rapidly declined. He was released from prison on compassionate grounds in August 2009 and died in a nursing home in December 2013.
Harry "Pete" Pierpont was a Prohibition era gangster, convicted murderer and bank robber. He was a friend and mentor to John Dillinger.
The Brink's-Mat robbery was one of the largest robberies in British history, with £26 million worth of gold bullion, diamonds, and cash stolen. It occurred at the Heathrow International Trading Estate, London, on 26 November 1983, from a warehouse operated by Brink's-Mat, a former joint venture between US security company Brink's and London-based company MAT Transport. The bullion was the property of Johnson Matthey Bankers Ltd. Micky McAvoy and Brian Robinson were convicted of armed robbery. Most of the gold has never been recovered. Lloyd's of London paid out for the losses, and several shooting deaths have been linked to the case.
Mutulu Shakur was a New African activist, and a member of the Black Liberation Army who was sentenced to sixty years in prison for his involvement in a 1981 robbery of a Brinks armored truck in which a guard and two police officers were murdered.
Judith Alice Clark, known as Judy Clark, is a US far-left radical activist, formerly a member of the Weather Underground and the May 19th Communist Organization (M19). Her mother was the researcher Ruth Clark. In 1967, she took up studies at the University of Chicago, where she joined Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and later co-founded the Weather Underground, participating in the Days of Rage. She went underground, was arrested and briefly incarcerated; afterwards she lived in New York City, co-founding M19. In the early 1980s, M19 linked with the Black Liberation Army (BLA) as The Family in order to carry out bank robberies to support revolutionary struggle. Clark was arrested driving a getaway car after the October 1981 Brink's robbery in Nanuet, New York, in which a security guard and two Nyack, New York police officers were shot and killed.
The Brink's Company is an American cash handling company, headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. Its operations include cash-in-transit, ATM replenishment & maintenance, and cash management & payment services, such as vault outsourcing, money processing, intelligent safe services, and international transportation of valuables.
The Brink's Job is a 1978 American crime comedy drama film directed by William Friedkin and starring Peter Falk, Peter Boyle, Allen Garfield, Warren Oates, Gena Rowlands, and Paul Sorvino. It is based on the Brink's robbery of 1950 in Boston, and the book about it, Big Stick-Up at Brinks by Noel Behn. Robbers stole $2.7 million in cash, checks, and government securities.
The West End Gang is a Canadian organized crime group in Montreal, Quebec. An Irish mob group originating from the Irish-Canadian ethnic enclave of Pointe-Saint-Charles in the 1950s, the majority of the gang's earnings were initially derived from truck hijackings, home invasions, kidnapping, protection rackets, extortion, and armed robbery, with its criminal activities focused on, but not restricted to, the west side of Montreal. The West End Gang came to prominence via a series of high-profile bank robberies between the 1950s and the 1970s, a period when Montreal was known as "Bank Robbery capital of North America". Due to the gang's control of illegal activity at the Port of Montreal, it moved into drug trafficking and became one of the most influential criminal organizations in Canada.
Stephen Reid was a Canadian criminal and writer, who was a member of the notorious Stopwatch Gang and was also convicted twice of bank robbery. Reid served time in over 20 prisons in Canada and the United States.
George Dale was the lover and criminal partner of Eleanor Jarman, dubbed by the press "The Blonde Tigress". Dale was executed by the state of Illinois in 1934 for the murder of Chicago clothier Gustav Hoeh, which he committed with Jarman and another criminal associate, Leo Minnici, acting as his accomplices.
The 1981 Brink's robbery was an armed robbery and three related murders committed on October 20, 1981, by several Black Liberation Army members and four former members of the Weather Underground, who were at the time associated with the May 19th Communist Organization. The plan called for the BLA members – including Kuwasi Balagoon, Sekou Odinga, Mtayari Sundiata, Samuel Brown and Mutulu Shakur – to carry out the robbery, with the M19CO members – David Gilbert, Judith Alice Clark, Kathy Boudin, and Marilyn Buck – to serve as getaway drivers in switchcars.
Thomas Kapatos, nicknamed as "Tommy the Greek", was a Greek-American gangster who was associated with the Irish mob in New York City. A convicted armed robber, Kapatos was an enforcer for Hell's Kitchen crime boss Mickey Spillane during his war against Jimmy Coonan in the 1970s. He was murdered in 1977 as a result of a conflict between Spillane's gang and the Genovese crime family.
Edna "Rabbit" Murray (1898–1966) was an American criminal associated with several high-profile gangs in the Depression-era of the early 1930s. Although popularly known to the press as the "Kissing Bandit" for kissing a male robbery victim, she was known in the underworld as "Rabbit" for her skills in breaking out of the penitentiary.
John Paul Chase was an American bank robber and Depression-era outlaw. He was a longtime criminal associate of the Karpis-Barker Gang and most notably Baby Face Nelson who later brought him into the John Dillinger gang. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover once referred to Chase as "a rat with a patriotic-sounding name". Chase and Nelson continued to rob banks with John Dillinger until Dillinger's death in July 1934. After the death of Nelson in November 1934, Chase fled back to California where he was arrested a month later on December 27, 1934. Chase was sent to Alcatraz where he became one of the longest-serving inmates;.
The Holden–Keating Gang was a bank robbing team, led by Thomas James Holden and Francis Lawrence Keating, which was active in the Midwestern United States from 1926 to 1932. Holden was described by a spokesman for the FBI as "a menace to every man, woman, and child in America" and was the first fugitive to be officially listed on the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted List in 1950.
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.
