7 Crazy Real-Life Heists That Will Make You Forget About “Money Heist”

By now, you probably have watched Money Heist. But if you think that you have come across the greatest heist ever, these real-life heists will make you rethink.

1. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Heist, Boston, 1990

On St. Patrick’s Day, 1990, when the city was chugging beers to celebrate, two thieves dressed themselves in Boston police uniform to enter the museum and got away with 13 artworks. Among the missing pieces, one was from Manet, one from Rembrandt while some were from Degas. The estimated value of the artworks were $500 million in total. Of course, that number is nothing compared to Money Heist, but art is priceless, isn’t it?

The empty frames can still be found hanging on the wall in the museum, in reminiscence of the missing artworks. The heist remains á one of America’s greatest unsolved crimes of all time.

2. The stolen $6 billion case in Post-Saddam Iraq

In all the chaos that followed the fall of Saddam, with the USS military forces and private contractors fighting to gain control over the region, $6 billion sent by the US Congress to Iraq have been stolen.

Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general responsible for Iraq reconstruction, said he couldn’t explain how the money went missing and named it the national history’s largest theft of funds.

3. The 1963 Great Train Robbery in England

Back in 1963, in England, a gang with 15 members stole £2.3 million (today that would be around £40 million) from a post office train. Bruce Reynolds and 11 gang members messed up the railway track signals, stopping a Roya Mail Glasgow – London night train. At that time, the train was carrying with it letters parcels as well as large amounts of cash.

If the gang didn’t play monopoly in a barn with the stolen cash, leaving their fingerprints everywhere, they wouldn’t have been caught. Reynolds fleed from England with his wife and son. The police caught him right after he returned to Britain. Reynolds received 25 years in prison as his final sentence for the train robbery. And he served just 10 years.

4. The 1971 leap of faith of D.B Cooper

In 1971, D.B. Cooper performed an air privacy act that remains unsolved until this day. Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727, stole $200,000. Then when the plain was somewhere between Settle and Portland, he jumped out of it and disappeared from then. Even after 40 years since the hijacking, the case is still active with FBI agents search for him. And up until now, who the thief was is still a mystery. And yes, Prison Break got its reference from D.B. Cooper.

5. The 2009 Vastberga Helicopter Robbery

Although the robbery was quite simple, it was the first time for the Swedish police force to see anything like this. A helicopter was stolen by a group of thieves. They then used the helicopter to carry out a robbery. The thieves parked the helicopter on top of a cash depot building then used sledgehammers to break the glass. They then blow the security doors with explosives and robbed the cash store vaults.

The thieves used caltrops to blow the tires of the cop cars that came to catch them. The caught ones among the thieves were sentenced to no more than 7 years, according to the law of the country.

6. Thomas Blood’s English crown jewels heist in 1671

Thomas Blood was an assassin with an Irish heritage. He came up with an ambitious plan to steal the crown jewels of the monarch.

Now, this plan has got the potential to be turned into a Hollywood blockbuster movie. The plan of Blood involved some costumes along with a fake title, a wife, and a nephew whom he claimed would marry Talbot Edwards’ daughter. Edwards was the keeper of the jewels.

When they went with Talbot to see the jewel, they knocked him out and put the jewels in their pants. But the guards caught them right away. Luckily for Blood, his plan managed to impress King Charles II. Blood was allowed to live and spent the rest of his life in Ireland.

7. The 2003 Antwerp Diamond Heist

Among all the heists in real life, this one deserves its title as the heist of the century. $100 million were the estimated worth of the stolen diamonds. But there was a master plan behind the heist.

The mastermind, Leonardo Notarbartolo, lived three years beside the diamond center before he carried out his plan. Leonardo pretended to be a diamond merchant from Italia to get familiar with the center. However, while his crew got away, he was arrested.

Years later, Leonardo confessed that the whole thing turned out to be an insurance fraud attempt and he was hired by a diamond merchant. The actual amount that was stolen was around $20 million. And the insurance company had to suffer the largest part of the theft.

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