Career Criminals

Thieves broke into a hotel, tied up one of the world’s most well known women in pop culture, robbed her at gunpoint. and vanished into the night with her jewels that were estimated to have been worth an incredible $5.6 million. This was a heist worthy of a Hollywood plot line that at the time graced the pages of news and entertainment sites around the globe. In a time where social media is at the heart of everyone’s lives; this robbery capitalised on it.

André Stander, a South African police captain became the most notorious bank robber in the nation. Like the script of a movie, he’d commit heists on his lunch breaks, and return to the scene of the crime as the investigating officer, and even when caught and imprisoned, staged an incredible escape with his soon to be founded, Stander gang. He is the classic good guy turned bad; a former police captain sick of a corrupt country, getting one over on authority. If you can’t beat them, join ‘em they say!

From 1995 to 2001, under the guise of a french waiter, Stéphane Breitweiser travelled Europe lifting famed artwork from galleries often as much as two times a week. The value of his treasures totalled an incredible $1.4 billion, but when finally caught, his story met an unusual and tragic end.

From 2008 to 2009 a group of school kids living near the celebrity rich area of the Hollywood Hills went on a crime spree targeting celebrities, not just for their money, but to lift their clothes and valuables in a bid to emulate their lifestyles. In a place and time where image was and still is everything, they used the latest social media tools to research their targets, stealing a grand total of 3m dollars in cash and belongings, to live out the American dream.

We take a look at a crime that took place in Las Vegas in 1993, that saw the theft of $3.1 million and is pegged as one of the largest heists in Vegas history. It was described as the perfect crime, but you’d be wrong In thinking it was executed by a career criminal. The robber was a girl just 21 years of age, with a clean record, who turned her attention to casinos with a new boyfriend, for a want of a better, richer life.

We tell the story of the biggest train heist ever in Wyoming, USA- the Cowboy State. This legendary hold up took place in June 1899, when masked bandits burst onto an overland train in the dead of night to rob its lucrative cargo, a crime thought to be linked to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

We take a look at the infamous DB Cooper and his hijacking of a Boeing 727 aeroplane, known as the only unsolved case of air-piracy in commercial aviation history. This legendary skyjacking took place on 1971, on a plane flying from Portland to Seattle. Extorting a ransom which is today valued at $1,260,000, Mr Cooper parachuted head first out the back of the plane... and he was never to be seen again.

We take a deep dive into a heist dubbed the “largest burglary in English legal history”, that took place in the area of London, England, called Hatton Garden - the jewellery district. £14 million pounds worth of jewels, gold and valuables is looted by a gang with a combined age of 441 years, dubbed by the English tabloids as The Diamond Wheezers.