Albert Spaggiari, nicknamed Bert, was a French criminal chiefly known as the organizer of a break-in into a Société Générale bank in Nice, France, in July 1976 that resulted in the theft of an estimated 46 million francs, none of which were ever found.
Víctor Manuel Gerena is an American fugitive wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the September 1983 White Eagle armed robbery, as a Wells Fargo employee and a member of the Boricua Popular Army, of a Wells Fargo armored car facility. The $7 million in cash was the largest cash robbery in U.S. history at that time.
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.
On September 12, 1997, six men robbed the Dunbar Armored facility on Mateo St. in Downtown Los Angeles, California of US$18.9 million. The robbery was orchestrated by Allen Pace III, of Compton, with childhood friends Erik Damon Boyd, of Buena Park; Eugene Lamar Hill Jr., of Bellflower; Freddie Lynn McCrary Jr., of Arleta; Terry Wayne Brown Sr., of Los Angeles; and Thomas Lee Johnson, of Las Vegas, Nevada. It was the largest cash robbery to have occurred in the United States until the Easter Sunday Heist on March 31, 2024 which was estimated at over $30 million.
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 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 on American soil 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 $7 million. At the time of the robbery, it was the largest cash heist in U.S. history.
Philip Noel Johnson is a former armored car driver employed by Loomis Fargo & Company in Jacksonville, Florida. He is notable for the theft of 18.8 million dollars, at the time the largest heist ever pulled off.
Loomis AB is a Swedish cash handling company. The modern company was formed in 1997 by the consolidation of two armoured security concerns, Wells Fargo Armored Service and Loomis Armored Inc. Their international network covers over 200 operating locations in the US and eleven Western European countries.
The United California Bank burglary took place on 24 March 1972, when the safe deposit vault at United California Bank in Laguna Niguel, California, was broken into and $9 million in cash and valuables were looted by professional burglars led by Amil Dinsio.
The Plymouth Mail robbery, or what the press dubbed "The Great Plymouth Mail Truck Robbery" was, at the time of its occurrence, the largest cash heist of all time. On August 14, 1962, two gunmen stopped a U.S. Mail truck that was delivering $1.5 million in small bills from Cape Cod to the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston, Massachusetts. The hijacking occurred on Route 3 in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The two robbers, dressed as police officers and brandishing submachine guns, tied up the driver of the truck and the guard and drove the truck themselves to places unknown, where the money was dropped off in several places. The truck and its two tied-up occupants were abandoned in Randolph, Massachusetts, alongside Route 128.
Empire State is a 2013 American crime drama film centered on two childhood friends who rob an armored car repository and the NYPD officer who stands in their way. Directed by Dito Montiel and starring Liam Hemsworth, Emma Roberts and Dwayne Johnson, the film was released straight to DVD and Blu-ray on September 3, 2013. It is based on the true story of the 1983 Sentry Armored Car Courier Company theft.
Masterminds is a 2016 American crime comedy film based on the October 1997 Loomis Fargo robbery in North Carolina. Directed by Jared Hess and written by Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer and Emily Spivey, it stars Zach Galifianakis, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones and Jason Sudeikis.
The Bangladesh Bank robbery, also known colloquially as the Bangladesh Bank cyber heist, was a theft that took place in February 2016. Thirty-five fraudulent instructions were issued by security hackers via the SWIFT network to illegally transfer close to US$1 billion from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York account belonging to Bangladesh Bank, the central bank of Bangladesh. Five of the thirty-five fraudulent instructions were successful in transferring US$101 million, with US$81 million traced to the Philippines and US$20 million to Sri Lanka. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York blocked the remaining thirty transactions, amounting to US$850 million, due to suspicions raised by a misspelled instruction. As of 2018, only around US$18 million of the US$81 million transferred to the Philippines has been recovered, and all the money transferred to Sri Lanka has since been recovered. Most of the money transferred to the Philippines went to four personal accounts, held by single individuals, and not to companies or corporations.
The Bonded Vault heist was the August 1975 robbery of the Bonded Vault Company, a commercial safe-deposit business occupying a vault inside Hudson Fur Storage in Providence, Rhode Island. It served as the unofficial "bank" used by the Patriarca crime family and associates. The stolen valuables were worth about $30 million. According to The Providence Journal, it was among the biggest heists in US history and resulted in the longest and costliest criminal trial in Rhode Island history.
The 1999 Loomis truck robbery was a daring currency heist of a Loomis, Fargo & Co. semi-trailer truck on March 24, 1999, still unsolved. At some point during its route transporting money from Sacramento, California to San Francisco, one or more robbers boarded the truck, cut a hole in the roof, removed approximately 2.3 million dollars, and disappeared with the money, completely evading detection by the truck's driver and guards. The robbery was not discovered until after the truck arrived at its destination. No suspects were ever identified by authorities and the theft is now a cold case. Even the exact tools and methods used by robber or robbers were never conclusively determined.
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.
Wells Fargo was an American banking company based in San Francisco, California, that was acquired by Norwest Corporation in 1998. During the California Gold Rush in early 1848 at Sutter's Mill near Coloma, California, financiers and entrepreneurs from all over North America and the world flocked to California, drawn by the promise of huge profits. Vermont native Henry Wells and New Yorker William G. Fargo watched the California economy boom with keen interest. Before either Wells or Fargo could pursue opportunities offered in the Western United States, however, they had business to attend to in the Eastern United States.
On February 10, 1997, the Seafirst Bank branch of Lakewood, Washington, was robbed of $4,461,681 in cash by Billy Kirkpatrick and Ray Bowman, also known as the Trenchcoat Robbers. An investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service caught the two, and they were both sent to 15 years in prison in 1999. It is one of the largest robberies in U.S. history.
