A crooked cop pulls off a bank job worth over $10 million. He committed the perfect crime and mocked authorities. Masterminds s2e11: Memorial Day Heist
Medford, Massachusetts ... The richest bank in Medford was Depositors Trust. Its security system was state of the art. There were massive time-lock steel doors. Inside was a Safe and a thousand double-key deposit boxes. The vault seemed impregnable. But on Memorial weekend 1980 the unthinkable happened ... The largest bank burglary in New England’s history. $10 million in cash and jewels were gone ... The reinforced concrete ceiling had a hole blown in it. ibid.
He [Steven Hadley] stole a million dollars and vanished into thin air. No-one believed he could be a criminal but he led a double life. Masterminds s2e12: The Disappearing Man
The man they were watching had been a credit union employee for over ten years. Colleagues were stunned. ibid.
13 years in prison plus restitution. He returns the stolen money and serves 4 years. ibid.
1He pulled off the most daring crime spree in South African history. A top cop turns into the country’s most celebrated criminal. Masterminds s2e14: The Stander Gang
1983 ... The Trust Bank: three strange-looking men walked in cool as ice; it was a hold-up. ibid.
As police gathered clues at the Trust Bank they were completely unaware that a second bank robbery was taking place just a few streets over. And there was more to come: as police raced to the second robbery yet a third was being committed just around the corner. As they arrived too late for the third, around the corner was a fourth. Authorities had never seen anything like it before. And this was just the beginning. In one summer the gang hit over twenty banks. ibid.
A phantom bandit robbed banks across the nation using techniques never seen before and made himself millions. Masterminds e39: The Phantom Bandit
In the mid-1980s Canada was hit with dramatic rise in bank robberies. ibid.
Gilber Galvan: An American fugitive who robbed over 50 Canadian banks and made himself millions. ibid.
They [Craig Pritchert & Nova Guthrie] hit banks across the American mid-west scoring a half million dollars and evading police at every turn. Masterminds e42: The Halloween Heist
An astonishing crime riveted an entire country. He [Kallet Alvarazi] waged a war of nerves with the police. His gang scored millions in cash and jewellery. Masterminds e47: The Berlin Heist
Sixteen people are being held hostage itself by four masked men. ibid.
Hundreds of safe deposit boxes are housed in a basement vault. ibid.
He [Kallet] is going to build a tunnel. ibid.
He [David Brankle] robs banks to finance a double life. Striking with lightening speed. In 2002 authorities started noticing a pattern to bank robberies across the mid-west. At every bank it was the same story. By the time bank managers were alerted to the thefts he was gone. At the crime scenes police found no useful evidence. Masterminds e48: The Highway Robber
A family man with no criminal record living in small-town Indiana. In an incredible 20-month spree David Brankle hit nearly 50 banks in 6 states and made himself a fortune. ibid.
A surveillance camera in a supermarket car park captures their suspect getting into his car. ibid.
No-one had ever seen anything like him. A modern-art Robin Hood hit banks across Israel. Masterminds e52: The Motorcycle Bandit
The motorcycle bandit struck a chord with the public. ibid.
A robbery spree that takes the country by storm. ibid.
[Frankie] Fraser has spent forty years, the equivalent of his girlfriend’s lifetime, in prison. The Underworld: Robbery, 1994
Banks were next on the list. ibid.
There was friction whenever these freelance operators teamed up. ibid.
The gang went on to steal £238,000 from Barclays in Ilford in February 1970. It was the largest bank robbery in Britain. ibid.
By the summer of 1972 there was an armed robbery in London every five days. ibid.
On 10th August it took a gang just ninety seconds to seize £138,000 from Barclay’s Bank in Wembley. ibid.
Scotland Yard formed the robbery squad. ibid.
The robbers made off with at least and probably more than £500,0000 in jewels, money and valuables; allowing for inflation that’s more than £5,000,000 today. Royal Inquest, robbery of Lloyds Bank Baker Street London, later immortalised in the film Bank Job
The Great Baker Street Bank Robbery. Evening Standard headline 13th September 1971
In September 1971 Lloyds Bank in Baker Street London became the scene of one of the most death-defying robberies of all time. Britain’s Biggest Heists II: The Baker Street Robbery, 2011
In the dead of night Robert Rowlands feared he may have stumbled upon a robbery in progress. Concerned that he had somehow managed to tune in to a frequency being used by thieves, Rowlands knew he had to inform the authorities. ibid.
They didn’t know it was ... Scotland Yard were listening in. ibid.
The daring gang had somehow managed to dig their way through mounds of earth and rubble to the floor of the vault. ibid.
Allegations that the target was not in fact money and jewels but in fact compromising photographs of people in power were quickly dismissed by the Yard. ibid.
Police had their first major lead which led them to sixty-four-year-old leather goods dealer Benjamin Wolfe. ibid.
No forensic clues were left. ibid.
A careless oversight on the lease of the shop. ibid.
None of the stolen goods were recovered from the raid. ibid.
In April 1975 a gang of top criminals entered the Bank of America in London’s exclusive Mayfair dressed as smart businessmen. They raided the bank’s safe deposit boxes and stole an astonishing eight million of cash, jewels and high value items. Britain’s Biggest Heists II: The Bank of America Robbery
Twenty-six-year-old Stuart Buckley was serving a nine-month prison sentence for stolen goods. ibid.
Responding to a job vacancy Buckley had secured an electrician’s post at the Bank of America. ibid.
In the 1970s they had nine branches. ibid.
The whole bank’s security procedure was questionable. ibid.
Whilst he already had keys to the bank’s side door he did not have keys to the vault area itself where all the money and valuable items were kept. ibid.
The police didn’t think the crime was that serious. ibid. first attempt
Brazenly, they set about planning a second attempt. ibid.
Hostages: they were left bound and gagged as the robbers escaped with their haul. ibid.
News of the heist was soon making the headlines. ibid.
The Flying Squad were quickly drafted in to investigate the crime. ibid.
The police quickly identified Stuart Buckley’s role in the heist. ibid.
Stuart Buckley was awarded super-grass status. ibid.
The 1970s gave birth to the era of the super-grass and opened a new chapter of criminal investigation in Britain. ibid.
It was a brutal and audacious bank robbery using the maximum threat of violence and death. It sent shock waves around the world just days before Christmas in 2004 the theft of £26.5 took place from the headquarters of the Northern Bank in Belfast Northern Ireland. Britain’s Biggest Heists: The Northern Bank Robbery, 2011
Two employees and their families were abducted and held hostage by a criminal gang who threatened them with violence and death. ibid.
Following the raid the Northern Bank announced that it would take the drastic step to withdraw all its bank notes. ibid.
Too many things point it having been the IRA. One is the manner of taking people hostage ... Second is the scale of the thing. Professor Richard English, author The History of the IRA
He is one of the most prolific bank robbers in American history. American Gangster s2e8: Chaz Williams, BET 2007
In 1971 his crew got caught. ibid.
In September of 1975 he was found guilty of armed bank robbery. ibid.
Undeterred, Cornell’s crew robbed dozens of banks while still attending high school. American Gangster s3e4: Cornell Jones