8 Most Notorious HEISTS

"From the $100 million diamond heist in Belgium, to the most shocking extortion scheme in the USA, these are the 8 MOST Notorious Heists !Show more

8.Gardner Museum Heist

7.Central Bank of Iraq

6.Stephane Breitwieser

5.Lufthansa Heist

December 11th, 1978, $5.87 million worth of cash and jewelry goes missing from the J.F.K International Airport in NYC. The robbery was dubbed the Lufthansa heist, and at the time, was the largest cash robbery committed on U.S. soil.

Everything began when a fella named Henry Hill learned of a way to steal millions of untraceable cash and shared his plan with the criminal Jimmy Burke, who was an associate of the Lucchese crime family.

Lufthansa flew in American currency that was exchanged in West Germany every month. They would keep the cash in a vault at the Kennedy Airport and then disperse it to banks.

Jimmy Burke organized the heist with a little bit of help from airport workers and on Dec 11, six armed, masked men stole almost 6 million dollars in the span of 61 minutes.

And they would’ve gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for those meddling kids ! Seriously though, the guy who was supposed to dispose of the van used in the theft decided to go party at his girlfriend's house instead. He also parked the van in a no parking zone, the cops wasted no time tying the van to the robbery and the house of cards started falling apart.

Jimmy Burke became paranoid and started killing off everyone who was involved in the heist, none of the money was recovered, and we got one of the best crime movies ever, Goodfellas.

Investigators are still trying to tie up all the loose ends, but with each passing day, the job gets harder since the people they are investigating are either dead, or in their late 60’s.

4.The theft of the Mona Lisa

Before Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was considered the most famous piece of artwork, the Louvre did not hide it behind bullet proof glass. In fact, it only took 1 guy and a lab coat to steal this painting in 1911.

Vincenzo Peruggia was a former worker at the Louvre who snuck inside the museum, waited for the room where the painting hung to empty out, took the painting off the 4 iron pegs, wrapped it in his labcoat and left the building the same way he came in, through a freaking side door.

He hid the painting for 2 years inside a trunk in France, and later moved it inside a different trunk in his new apartment in Italy. He grew impatient and eventually tried to sell the painting to an art gallery (weird I know). He was busted immediately, and the painting was returned to Louvre safely.

If you are thinking about doing a quick theft of the Mona Lisa again, know that it is worth about $780 million dollars, so security has definitely beefed up.

3.Antwerp Diamond Heist

The Antwerp Diamond Centre in Belgium was the scene of the biggest diamond heist east, and west, of the Mississippi.

Leonardo Notarbartolo rented an office in the building where he posed as an Italian diamond merchant to gain credibility and a 24 hour access to the center. He stuck with the ruse for 2.5 years, until it was time for the ultimate heist. His crew gained access to the main vault through sheer ingenuity. The vault that was protected by seismic sensors, doppler radars, a lock with 100 million possible combinations, infrared heat detectors, and a magnetic field ! in other words, it was supposed to be impenetrable.

The thieves broke into 123 out of the 160 safe deposit boxes and made away with more than 100 million dollars worth of diamonds, jewelry, and gold. They also stole the surveillance footage, and it seemed like they had thought of everything… well almost.

Just like any genius thief, Leonardo made just one crucial mistake. When he was getting rid of the tapes, he also threw away a half eaten sandwich… aaaand through DNA testing, he was implicated in the robbery.

He never gave up anyone else from the crew and received a 10 year sentence, none of the stolen property was ever recovered, and since this is such an awesome story J.J. Abrams is expected to produce the movie about it.

2.Securitas Depot Robbery

The Securitas Depot Robbery is considered the largest cash robbery in British History.

On February 21s, 2006, the manager of the depot was abducted along with his wife and daughter. He was then driven to the depot at 1 AM. The masked gunmen bound and gagged the 14 employees that were working, and proceeded to take around 60 million in cash.

Securitas offered a $3 million reward for anyone that had information about the theft, or the perps. Luckily for them, the cops did their job investigating this case, and after about 1 year of raids and arrests, they had recovered $13 million in cash, and arrested 36 people in connection with the robbery.

The main thieves got sentences ranging from 10 to 25 years."