September 14, 2023 • 30 mins
Three young jewel thieves from Eastern Europe arrive in Dubai with a plan for a spectacular heist that will make them both rich and famous. They’ll drive two luxury sedans through the glass entrance doors of a high-end shopping mall and make off with millions in diamonds and jewelry — all in under a minute. Meet the Pink Panthers.
Hosted by Natalia Antelava
Written by Katrina Wolfe, Adam Pincus, Suzanne Myers and David Markowitz with help from Brent Katz and Matt Levin.
Best Case Studios:
Adam Pincus, Executive Producer
David Markowitz, Senior Producer
Katrina Wolfe, Producer
Hannah Lebowitz-Lockard, Associate Producer
Julie Goldstein and Louis Spiegler, Consulting Producers
Coda Story:
Ilan Greenberg, Reporter
Rebekah Robinson, Associate Producer
Gaelan Mullins and Max Michael Miller, Editors and Sound Designers
Dave Harrington, Original Music
Magda Gora and Paul Dallas, Archival Producers
Exactly Right:
Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer, Executive Producers
Kyle Ryan, Consulting Producer
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
I mean, I'm going to met commanders in staff Nico,
Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to Dubai, where the local time is twelve twenty am.
It's March two thousand and seven. The passengers arriving at
Dubai International Airport are the typical mix for this bustling,
worf class city. They're locals returning home to the United
Arab Emirates, or business people from all over the world
(00:34):
coming to meet with Dubai's rich and lead. Tourists here
to enjoy the parasailing, the luxury hotels, the conspicuous consumption
that Dubai is famous for. And among them is a
group of criminals with a particular taste for diamonds and
high end watches. They've come to Dubai to pull off
(00:55):
one of the most spectacular heists ever attempted from Serbia
in Eastern Europe. They're called the Pink Panthers, and this
is their story. I'm Natalia Antalava. I'm a journalist based
(01:16):
in Eastern Europe, and I'm going to take you into
the world of Serbia's most brazen jewel thieves, the most
daring and successful diamond thieves in the world. Thirty to
forty seconds in out they've stolen half a billion dollars
worth of valuables. Two well dressed men strolled into an
(01:38):
exclusive rowelry store in London and walked out with sixty
six million dollars in jewels. They called the Peak Panthers.
They're a loosely connected group of over educated, underemployed, ambitious
young people who rose from the ashes of the Yugoslav
Wars of the nineteen nineties to commit elaborate smash and
(02:00):
grab heists all across the globe, off in broad daylight.
This is infamous international The Pink Panthers Story, Episode one
heists at the Waffe Moll. There are eight members of
(02:24):
the Pink Panther's Dubai team, but at the center of
it are three young thieves from the same hometown, the
Serbian city of Niche. The mastermind and leader is a
boyishly handsome twenty seven year old Laden Lazarevitch, his girlfriend,
a stunning twenty six year old law school dropout Buyani Mitch,
(02:46):
and their best friend Milan de Poya, twenty nine tall
and swave with piercing green eyes. This is not the
first time these three have worked together. But this is
the turning point, the moment when Malad and Boyana and
Milan hit the world stage. Journalist Bradley Hope spent several
(03:11):
years in the United Arab Emirates reporting for The Wall
Street Journal. As he explains, the city of Dubai is
the perfect location for the Panthers' most brazen heist to date.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
The locals are a minority in Dubai. A lot of
people are coming in and out all the time. That
airport is one of the busiest airports in the world,
not to mention they have a huge tourism flow as well.
It's easy for anyone to blend in and part that's
because so many people from around the world live there.
There's tons of Afghans, especially the kind of wealthier ones.
It's full of Russians. It's full of people from places
(03:46):
like Angola that are seeking easier lifestyle even with all
the money that they have. A city like Dubai, it
has a really wild West feel.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
When Bradley Hopes is Dubai has a wild West feel,
he doesn't mean that it's a lawless lie more than
it's full of shady characters.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
You know, there's fraudsters, there's money launderers, there's Asian drug lords,
there's scammers, and there's really this feeling that Dubai is
a place you can go for a second chance, you know.
I remember there was a story about this guy. He
used to be a top hairdresser in Beverly Hills, but
he got arrested on felony charges of theft because he
(04:24):
was stealing jewelry from all of his high end clients.
He went to prison, and then when he got back out,
he went to Dubai and basically set up the same
job he used to have in Beverly Hills. But people
didn't seem to care.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
But even with this undercurrent of criminality, Dubai is a
place where robberies are rare.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
It's a city that's full of criminals, but there's not
a lot of crime. The entire UAE is the kind
of place where if you left your wallet on top
of your car, there's a fairly good chance by the
time you got back it's still be there. It's really
important to Dubai that people feel safe there, that they
feel like their money is safe, that they can go
shopping for super high end stuff and safely bring it
(05:03):
back to their hotel rooms and bring it back to
their countries.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Super high end stuff is a big part of Dubai's economy.
Conspeakious consumption is the thing businesses compete to offer the
most opulent experiences, the very highest of the high end.
Dubai is a place where billionaires flying on private jets,
shop for luxury brands, eat eight hundred dollars ice cream sundays,
(05:30):
and take a bath with fourteen carrot gold soap in
hotels that charge five figures a night. It's where stores
display some of their most valuable merchandise right on the
sales floor, precious gems winking at shoppers from glass cases.
It's also where world famous diamond dealer Lawrence Graft has
(05:52):
a flagship Bootsique, the aptly named Luxury channel on YouTube
rund this glowing profile. Lawrence Graff is one of the
top names in the world of select jewelry. A half
a century he's made exclusive pieces for the welcome, the
kings and queens and heads of state. I think history
is proved if you buy the best at anything, it's
(06:13):
going to be a good investment. And incidentally, to buy
the best, which always the highest price Lawrence Graf is
not exaggerating. His store is do indeed carry some of
the most expensive jewelry in the world. In twenty fifteen,
CNBC Prime visited a Graph store in New York City
to get a better idea of what kind of price
(06:34):
tag we're talking about.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
In the room right now. One of the least expensive
pieces is this rig two point eight million dollars.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
That's one over expension five carrots.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Raise ourselves.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
We're only going up from here.
Speaker 5 (06:49):
It's three and a half million.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
But the necklace and the earrings, but this one of
a kind necklace seems affordable compared to this.
Speaker 6 (06:57):
It's the most expensive watching in the world to watch
the one hundred and ten Extraordinary Fence.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
In colored diamonds. That watch is fifty five million dollars.
Fifty five million dollars for a single watch. That's an
enticing object if you're a billionaire or a jewel thief.
I first heard about the pink Panthers about a decade
(07:24):
ago from my friend and fellow journalist Ilan Greenberg. He
is obsessed with them. Ellan and I co founded an
international news organization, Code of Story, several years ago. I
had spent fifteen years as a foreign correspondent for the BBC.
Elan had been a staff writer at the Wall Street
(07:45):
Journal and written investigative pieces for publications like GQ and
The New York Times. From all the pieces he has
reported over the years, one that really stuck with me
was this story about the Serbian jewel thieves. Now I
mentioned that this is not the first heighst for Milanda Lazarevich,
(08:05):
his girlfriend Boyana Mitich, and their friend Milan lepuyam No.
They'd been practicing. The police had been investigating them, and
they were wanted for a heist at a high end
jewelry store in Liechtenstein, along with another member of the
Dubai team, Dousch kopols Nan, a handsome twenty nine year
old with dark hair and tired eyes. I asked Lan
(08:30):
about what this earlier heist says about the Pink Panther's style.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Well, Natalia, it says a fair amount. I mean, there
are a few things you see from the Lickenstein job.
First of all, what do they like to steal? They're
very smart about it, about identifying the most valuable stuff,
and that's diamonds for expensive jewelry and luxury watches, right.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
And those are multimillion dollar time pieces.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Yeah, but even if they're not at that level, a
Rolex or a Admar piguet can easily run a few
hundred thousand, right and what else? So this is the
other thing that's really consistent about them. There's a lot
of careful planning and then brute force. Lickenstein, it's a
smash and grab robbery, right. They come in, they neutralize
the salespeople, threaten them, they wave a gun in their face.
(09:17):
They figured out what they're after ahead of time, so
they smash the cases with hammers and they grab the
most valuable stuff and then they leave. So the other
thing in Lickenstein, they made sure they got in and
out really fast, but Yana was waiting at the curb
with the getaway car.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Sounds like a pretty well run operation, and Tony's does
not become a blueprint for what they have planned in Dubai.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Yeah, but there are some things about Dubai that are
really different, like the fact that for the most part,
all the shopping that happens are in these massive indoor malls. Dubai,
keep in mind, is a desert city. There aren't shops
lining the streets, so you can't have a getaway car
just waiting where you run out of a shop with
a loot and you dive off.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
As a land says, Dubai presents some unique logistical challenges
and so the big panthers are specific about their choice
of target.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
So Waffi Mall is one of the kind of older
malls in Dubai but very fancy, still still has a
lot of these kind of high end jewelry shops.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Journalist Bradley Hope again.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
It's located in the heart of the old city of Dubai.
It's a very crowded area in a more dense part
of the city. Right now, the city is full of
these massive shopping malls, and all of them were the
biggest shopping mall in the world until a new one
just down the road was built. But Waffie Mall had
this kind of slightly old fashioned.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
Feel to it.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
The relatively low security compared to some of the more fancy,
high end malls that had sprouted up. It made a
perfect combination for this kind of smash and grab robbery technique.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
The target is set a graph boutique located inside the
low security Waffy mall in the middle of the city.
But they can't just carry all that loot back through
the mall to the parking lot. No, they need to
find a way to take the car to the jewels,
or maybe two cars. Serbian journalist Yelena Zorich is one
(11:31):
of the leading experts on the Pink Panthers. She's more
comfortable speaking Serbian, so you're hearing a translator. Stragi remalgan
and criminal.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
They had to picture in their heads exactly how everything
is going to happen.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
The Panthers spent weeks getting familiar with the city and
carefully studying their targets.
Speaker 5 (11:56):
It was very risky, and this is why they had
to be very familiar with the area. They couldn't just
show up to see the jeuror and say, okay, we
like it here, that this is.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
How we're going to do it.
Speaker 5 (12:06):
They would come and rent an apartment and connect with
other Serbians as well in Dubai. Because they had to
know the city first of all, they had to feel
the pulse of the city.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
They had to feel the poles of the mall.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
They make sure that they raised no suspicion at this
stage of the operation. They managed the details carefully.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
It was a nice apartment so they could fit in,
they could look like regular tourists who was visiting the ViiBE.
And also it was in a good pot which was
not too far away from the mall, so they had
good access from there.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Each member of the Ping Panthers team has a specific
role to play. During this preparation phase, boy and Imitic
acted as a sort of a project manager.
Speaker 5 (12:50):
She was there for the logistics. She was there to
connect everybody to put everything in motion. She was using
the credit cards. She is the one who pays for
thinks all the apartments they were renting, all the cars
they were renting or they were buying.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Is Boyana who visits the graft store multiple times, dressed
and expensive clothes. She blends write in with other shoppers,
all while gathering intel on the stores operations.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
As a young good looking girl.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
Other people from the jewelries, they didn't suspect that they
would do something.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
With Boyanna's help, the Panthers identify the most valuable merchandise.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Which was worth eleven million ears.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
They studied the security system.
Speaker 5 (13:31):
They were aware of the fact that they were security
cameras everywhere, and.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
They determined the best time of day for the robbery,
just before ten pm, right as the mall is closing.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
They were aware of the fact that it's very dangerous
and they didn't want to kill someone during this section
because that was possible if you come in the middle
of the day with two cars and a shopping mall,
that someone might end up as a victim.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
This is an important point. The Pink Panthers take every
precaution to make sure that no one gets hurt or
worse killed during their heists, because that's what gets you
on the radar of INTERPOL, the international criminal police organization
based in France. Interpol works with law enforcement in one
(14:19):
hundred and ninety four countries to go after criminals who
cross international borders, but they're generally focused on crimes that
are more urgent than jewel heists.
Speaker 5 (14:29):
Interpol is not going to chase you that much if
you are not a murder and that's why every time
Pink Panthers were working, they were very careful not to
harm anyone in their heights.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Then they were.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
Spectacular in the way they were doing it. They took
a lot of money, definitely, but they will saying okay,
we're not going to kill anyone, so yeah, we're not
going to be that interesting to Interpol.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Being interesting to Interpol can result in them issuing a
red notice. An urgent bulletin Interpol sends out to law
enforcement agencies all around the world. When that happens, you
can be arrested and extradited from almost any country. So
(15:14):
the Panthers decide to strike just before the Waffe mall
is set to close for the night. Fewer people in
the mall, fewer people in harm's way, and after weeks
of careful planning and preparation, the Panthers are ready. As
the day of the robbery approaches, there is one last
(15:36):
piece of the plant to be completed, the getaway cars,
and the Pink Panthers have something quite specific in mind,
like the fancy apartment and Boyana's elegant clothes. The Panthers
pay close attention to image. It's partly camouflage, but it's
also a theater. There's still a black Audi assayed, a
(15:59):
luxury s done worth one hundred thousand dollars plus. To
blend in here, you need a high end car, but
they can only find one in Dubai, and their plan
calls for two cars, so they drive ninety minutes to
Abu Dhabi to steal a second S eight. This is
not a practical decision. They're planning to put on a show.
(16:23):
So on the evening of the heist, as the mall
is preparing to close for the night, the black Audi
backs up to the entrance doors. Soon the white car
pulls up directly in front of it. I asked Ilan
to take me through the events in detail.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
So the first thing they do is they line up
their cars in front of the mall, so their nose
to nose and Boyana's car she's facing backwards and the
Milan's car is in the opposite way. He's facing the mall,
the entrance to the mall, and then they rep their
engines and boom they take off exactly at the same time.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Footage from the malt security cameras captures the scene the
black Audi careening backward through the glass entrance doors across
the ornate marble floor of the mall. Just as reporter
Yelena Zoritch said, their cameras everywhere, and so we can
see this scene unfold from multiple angles. It's quite dramatic.
(17:25):
Boyana Mithch is behind the wheel of the black Audi.
She speeds backward down the mall corridor right up to
the jewelry store.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
They slam through the glass entrance of the mall. Then
they head toward that grass store, that jewelry store, which
is only a few hundred feet from the entrance. They
want a lot of extra weight in the back, so
they load up the trunks of the cars with cement locks.
It makes the cars like battering rams. It weaponizes the car.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
But tell me why is Boyana going reverse?
Speaker 4 (17:54):
Because when you go and reverse, you don't set off
the air bags. When you crash through the glass doors.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Boyana into the store entrance and the surrounding wall collapses.
Melanipuya is driving the white Audi. He and Boyana stay
in their cars, engines running while their fellow panthers run
in Overhead security footage shows black clad panthers, their faces masked,
(18:20):
hammers in hand. At this point, a shopper at the
mall takes out his BlackBerry and begins filming.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
So it's not high definition, it's grainy, but you can
see exactly what happened if you look closely. The panthers
they're coming out of the car. They're waving pistols around.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
The pistols are actually fake. It's another insurance policy. Nobody's
going to get trigger happy, no collateral damage. Cameras inside
the graph would Siek show two salesmen in suits running
to the back of the store. Behind them, a pink
panther moves calmly to the display cases one by one.
(18:59):
He smashed the glass, reaches in and tosses the merchandise
into a bag. That's the sound of the security alarms
going off, and that car honk is the signal from
Milan and Boyana to the others in side graph that
twenty seconds have passed. It's time to go. Cameras inside
(19:21):
graph show the ping panthers file out one by one.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
They run out of the store with a loot, and
they jump back in their cars. And if you look
carefully as they're driving away, you can see something smashing
the pieces of another world. So that's a shopper who's
watching from the balcony above had thrown down a plastic chair,
which is kind of a heroic act but also a
lame attempt to stop the thieves. Obviously would not have
(19:48):
slowed them down, but I give them an a for effort.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
And off, they go past the overhead security cameras and
back through the smashed entrance of the Waffi mall.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
From the very start to the very end, they're out
of there in fifty three seconds.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Fifty three seconds. Wow, And tell me, Alan, what were
the fifty three seconds worth of the end? What was
the value of the goods that they managed to grab?
Speaker 4 (20:14):
So accounts do vary, but we're talking about around three
point four million.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
The grainy video from that BlackBerry is posted online and
it goes viral. The whole thing feels intentional, like it's
about more than the money. The Pink Panthers know they'll
be caught on camera. They've gone to great lengths to
make sure that they had matching audis. It all seems
designed for maximum spectacle.
Speaker 6 (20:43):
But why.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Journalist Yolenos overrich again made you.
Speaker 5 (20:50):
They wanted to become an appius in the whole world
because if they become more famous, then it would get
them more better connections in this criminal world.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
They would have excellent recommendations.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
In the world of mafia and the world of drug
cartels that would be very useful in other aspects of
their life afterwards. That's why they got this crazy idea
to get inside with the two cars. No one probably
ever had the idea to do it in the shopping mall,
so they were very tempted with this idea to do
(21:24):
something so bold, so unique.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
If they're going for attention, it works. The Waffi mall
heist certainly brings them instant global notoriety.
Speaker 6 (21:38):
When to Buy hit, it was a complete explosion media.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Dmitriy Voinoff is a Serbian screenwriter and film scholar. He
has researched the Pink Panthers extensively for his film All
Panthers Are Pink. He sees a connection between the panthers
staging of this heist as a made for media moment
and earlier criminals.
Speaker 6 (21:59):
If you look at and Clyde, who were the criminals
performing for the media as their crime spree is happening.
So Tony and Kyde are the first ones who are
actually communicating with the media as their crime spree was
an ongoing thing. I think that the Pink Panthers are
(22:19):
almost there and back.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Home and Serbian. Their exploits play Well to.
Speaker 6 (22:25):
Buy had this element of brute force, which I think
communicating people here very much. The sense of everything is
possible if you have enough power.
Speaker 5 (22:36):
To pull it off.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Kelenasorich again.
Speaker 5 (22:38):
For most of them, they are not exactly heroes, but
like a modern kind of hero because they do this
glorious robbery heist, you know, with fast cars and everything,
so everything looks like a scene from the movie.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
The panthers seem to get pretty much everything they want
out of the Waffimol job, glory, money, and a feeling
of invincibility. As for the Dubai police, such a public
robbery and in a shopping district, no less, it's embarrassing.
Speaker 5 (23:13):
And the Dubai Police was humiliated in a way because
they asked for interpals help immediately. They did their best
to look for them. But the escape plan was even
better than the plan for the highest.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
So Elan. What was the escape plan?
Speaker 4 (23:32):
The freeway? There was an entrance to the freeway right
by the Waffi mall. I'm sure that's a big reason
why they chose them hall in the first place. They
mapped out where the police headquarters is located in relation
to the mall. They planned it all out. They were
able to jump on the freeway and make their escape.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Right and then what they had straight for the airport.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
Well, no, they have to get rid of the evidence
right the cars. So they're on the freeway I don't know,
for three maybe four minutes, and then they exit into
a residential area that is very close to the Royal Palace.
At the time, it's a newer area, remember Dubai. It's
still getting built up. So there are villas, there are ministries,
(24:11):
but they are also big patches of desert and between
two big mansions. They drive up the cars, they douse
them with gasoline and then they light them on fire.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
So they set their cars on fire, and now what Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
They destroyed the two cars, but there's a third car.
They have a rental that's been parked there the whole time,
and so they get into that car and they drive
to the airport. The police don't even know what they're
looking for at this point. They have fake passports. They're
able to get to the airport with really no hassles.
They fly first to France by some accounts, and in
any case, they end up in Serbia safe and sound.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
It's a perfect plan. Almost in a moment, someone makes
a mistake. They leave the car windows closed and there
is not enough oxygen for the fire to burned the
cars completely, and so they do leave behind some evidence,
some DNA and there is something else. The police eventually
(25:11):
linked the last getaway car the when they rented back
to Boyana Yelenasorgsha Douglas Savaltomobile.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
Whenever they would rent cars, boats, motorbikes, whatever was useful
for the heist, they were always trying to rent it
under the counter by paying.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
That's how it works.
Speaker 5 (25:31):
Usually they offer more cash and than nobody records anything
about the person who rented it.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
But this wasn't an option in the UAE and Dumbai, it.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
Was definitely different because it's not that kind of a city.
So it's practically impossible to pay something in cash without
leaving your ID, without leaving your credit card.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
The panthers had stolen cars, they had fake passports. Clearly
they could have stolen credit cards if they needed them,
but Buyana seems to intentionally use her own card on
more than one occasion.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
So she said, Okay, I'm going to pay this with
my card. Everybody will know my name.
Speaker 5 (26:10):
The whole idea of the heist in Dubai was to
do something spectacular.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
They wanted to be known all around the world. Boyenna
agreed to do it that way because.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
As a part of the gang, she also wanted for
her name to become famous after.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
This, and according to Helena, there was another factor that
played into the decision.
Speaker 5 (26:31):
At that time, Serbia didn't have any kind of agreement
with the United Arab Emirates, so Interpol couldn't do anything to.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Her once she was back in Serbia. So the only
price they were sure.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
They would have to pay is that it wouldn't be
possible for them to come back to Dubai ever.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
But it's not the only price the Pink Panthers would
have to pay, because any crime that gets this much
attention demands a response. Even though they were careful not
to harm anyone, this robbery was not something law enforcement
could ignore, and so in the wake of the Waffi
Mull heist, Interpol issues that urgent worldwide bulletin the red
(27:14):
Notice calling for the immediate arrest and extradition of one
Boyana Mitag. Dubai is a turning point. The Waffi Mole
heist makes the Panthers the subject of worldwide attention for
better or worse, but it's only the latest in a
string of brazen smash and grab robberies that have been
(27:35):
going on for some time, and Laden Lazarevich, Buyana Mitic,
and Belan Li Poya are just three among many coming
up next on Infamous International. The Pink Panthers story. They
want the wow factor. By doing all of these things
that we associate with Pink Panther films, with James Bond films,
(27:56):
with countless heist films, I think it actually makes it very,
very hard to catch them. The Pink Panther's approach is
incredibly successful. First came this guy wearing a suit, and
then came another guy in a white mask. Almost immediately
after him. He shot the tear gas in the faces
of the quirks. They stole this tierra. The tier itselfsth
(28:16):
like two million dollars and they did it all in
about thirty two seconds, but millions of dollars it stolen.
Jewels presents its own set of issues the Pink Panthers.
Speaker 6 (28:27):
They like to hit high end shops, high end jewelry.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Here's the problem.
Speaker 6 (28:31):
If it's something that costs fifty million dollars from some
famous jeweler, everybody in the business.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Will know what it is.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
That's Next Time on Infamous International. The Pink Panther's Story.
Infamous International The Pink Panther's Story was produced by Best
Case Studios in association with Koda. Story hosted by me
(29:02):
Natalie ant Lava and written by Katrina Wolfe, Adam Pinkis,
Suszanne Meyers, and David Markowitz, with help from Brent Katz
and Matt Levin. For Best Case Studios Executive producer Adam Pinkis,
Senior producer David Markowitz, Producer Katrina Wolfe, Associate producer Hannah
(29:25):
Libovitz Lockhart, and consulting producers Julie Goldstein and Louis Spiegeler.
For Koda Story reporting by Lane Greenberg with associate producer
Rebecca Robinson. Edited and sound designed by Gaylan Mullens and
Max Michael Miller. Music by Dave Harrington. Archival producers Mark
(29:46):
Degra and Paul Dallas. This has been an Exactly Wright production.
Executive producers Karen Kilgareth Georgia Hart Stark, and Daniel Kramer,
with consulting producer Kyle L. Ryan
I mean, I'm going to met commanders in staff Nico,
Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to Dubai, where the local time is twelve twenty am.
It's March two thousand and seven. The passengers arriving at
Dubai International Airport are the typical mix for this bustling,
worf class city. They're locals returning home to the United
Arab Emirates, or business people from all over the world
(00:34):
coming to meet with Dubai's rich and lead. Tourists here
to enjoy the parasailing, the luxury hotels, the conspicuous consumption
that Dubai is famous for. And among them is a
group of criminals with a particular taste for diamonds and
high end watches. They've come to Dubai to pull off
(00:55):
one of the most spectacular heists ever attempted from Serbia
in Eastern Europe. They're called the Pink Panthers, and this
is their story. I'm Natalia Antalava. I'm a journalist based
(01:16):
in Eastern Europe, and I'm going to take you into
the world of Serbia's most brazen jewel thieves, the most
daring and successful diamond thieves in the world. Thirty to
forty seconds in out they've stolen half a billion dollars
worth of valuables. Two well dressed men strolled into an
(01:38):
exclusive rowelry store in London and walked out with sixty
six million dollars in jewels. They called the Peak Panthers.
They're a loosely connected group of over educated, underemployed, ambitious
young people who rose from the ashes of the Yugoslav
Wars of the nineteen nineties to commit elaborate smash and
(02:00):
grab heists all across the globe, off in broad daylight.
This is infamous international The Pink Panthers Story, Episode one
heists at the Waffe Moll. There are eight members of
(02:24):
the Pink Panther's Dubai team, but at the center of
it are three young thieves from the same hometown, the
Serbian city of Niche. The mastermind and leader is a
boyishly handsome twenty seven year old Laden Lazarevitch, his girlfriend,
a stunning twenty six year old law school dropout Buyani Mitch,
(02:46):
and their best friend Milan de Poya, twenty nine tall
and swave with piercing green eyes. This is not the
first time these three have worked together. But this is
the turning point, the moment when Malad and Boyana and
Milan hit the world stage. Journalist Bradley Hope spent several
(03:11):
years in the United Arab Emirates reporting for The Wall
Street Journal. As he explains, the city of Dubai is
the perfect location for the Panthers' most brazen heist to date.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
The locals are a minority in Dubai. A lot of
people are coming in and out all the time. That
airport is one of the busiest airports in the world,
not to mention they have a huge tourism flow as well.
It's easy for anyone to blend in and part that's
because so many people from around the world live there.
There's tons of Afghans, especially the kind of wealthier ones.
It's full of Russians. It's full of people from places
(03:46):
like Angola that are seeking easier lifestyle even with all
the money that they have. A city like Dubai, it
has a really wild West feel.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
When Bradley Hopes is Dubai has a wild West feel,
he doesn't mean that it's a lawless lie more than
it's full of shady characters.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
You know, there's fraudsters, there's money launderers, there's Asian drug lords,
there's scammers, and there's really this feeling that Dubai is
a place you can go for a second chance, you know.
I remember there was a story about this guy. He
used to be a top hairdresser in Beverly Hills, but
he got arrested on felony charges of theft because he
(04:24):
was stealing jewelry from all of his high end clients.
He went to prison, and then when he got back out,
he went to Dubai and basically set up the same
job he used to have in Beverly Hills. But people
didn't seem to care.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
But even with this undercurrent of criminality, Dubai is a
place where robberies are rare.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
It's a city that's full of criminals, but there's not
a lot of crime. The entire UAE is the kind
of place where if you left your wallet on top
of your car, there's a fairly good chance by the
time you got back it's still be there. It's really
important to Dubai that people feel safe there, that they
feel like their money is safe, that they can go
shopping for super high end stuff and safely bring it
(05:03):
back to their hotel rooms and bring it back to
their countries.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Super high end stuff is a big part of Dubai's economy.
Conspeakious consumption is the thing businesses compete to offer the
most opulent experiences, the very highest of the high end.
Dubai is a place where billionaires flying on private jets,
shop for luxury brands, eat eight hundred dollars ice cream sundays,
(05:30):
and take a bath with fourteen carrot gold soap in
hotels that charge five figures a night. It's where stores
display some of their most valuable merchandise right on the
sales floor, precious gems winking at shoppers from glass cases.
It's also where world famous diamond dealer Lawrence Graft has
(05:52):
a flagship Bootsique, the aptly named Luxury channel on YouTube
rund this glowing profile. Lawrence Graff is one of the
top names in the world of select jewelry. A half
a century he's made exclusive pieces for the welcome, the
kings and queens and heads of state. I think history
is proved if you buy the best at anything, it's
(06:13):
going to be a good investment. And incidentally, to buy
the best, which always the highest price Lawrence Graf is
not exaggerating. His store is do indeed carry some of
the most expensive jewelry in the world. In twenty fifteen,
CNBC Prime visited a Graph store in New York City
to get a better idea of what kind of price
(06:34):
tag we're talking about.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
In the room right now. One of the least expensive
pieces is this rig two point eight million dollars.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
That's one over expension five carrots.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Raise ourselves.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
We're only going up from here.
Speaker 5 (06:49):
It's three and a half million.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
But the necklace and the earrings, but this one of
a kind necklace seems affordable compared to this.
Speaker 6 (06:57):
It's the most expensive watching in the world to watch
the one hundred and ten Extraordinary Fence.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
In colored diamonds. That watch is fifty five million dollars.
Fifty five million dollars for a single watch. That's an
enticing object if you're a billionaire or a jewel thief.
I first heard about the pink Panthers about a decade
(07:24):
ago from my friend and fellow journalist Ilan Greenberg. He
is obsessed with them. Ellan and I co founded an
international news organization, Code of Story, several years ago. I
had spent fifteen years as a foreign correspondent for the BBC.
Elan had been a staff writer at the Wall Street
(07:45):
Journal and written investigative pieces for publications like GQ and
The New York Times. From all the pieces he has
reported over the years, one that really stuck with me
was this story about the Serbian jewel thieves. Now I
mentioned that this is not the first heighst for Milanda Lazarevich,
(08:05):
his girlfriend Boyana Mitich, and their friend Milan lepuyam No.
They'd been practicing. The police had been investigating them, and
they were wanted for a heist at a high end
jewelry store in Liechtenstein, along with another member of the
Dubai team, Dousch kopols Nan, a handsome twenty nine year
old with dark hair and tired eyes. I asked Lan
(08:30):
about what this earlier heist says about the Pink Panther's style.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Well, Natalia, it says a fair amount. I mean, there
are a few things you see from the Lickenstein job.
First of all, what do they like to steal? They're
very smart about it, about identifying the most valuable stuff,
and that's diamonds for expensive jewelry and luxury watches, right.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
And those are multimillion dollar time pieces.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Yeah, but even if they're not at that level, a
Rolex or a Admar piguet can easily run a few
hundred thousand, right and what else? So this is the
other thing that's really consistent about them. There's a lot
of careful planning and then brute force. Lickenstein, it's a
smash and grab robbery, right. They come in, they neutralize
the salespeople, threaten them, they wave a gun in their face.
(09:17):
They figured out what they're after ahead of time, so
they smash the cases with hammers and they grab the
most valuable stuff and then they leave. So the other
thing in Lickenstein, they made sure they got in and
out really fast, but Yana was waiting at the curb
with the getaway car.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Sounds like a pretty well run operation, and Tony's does
not become a blueprint for what they have planned in Dubai.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Yeah, but there are some things about Dubai that are
really different, like the fact that for the most part,
all the shopping that happens are in these massive indoor malls. Dubai,
keep in mind, is a desert city. There aren't shops
lining the streets, so you can't have a getaway car
just waiting where you run out of a shop with
a loot and you dive off.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
As a land says, Dubai presents some unique logistical challenges
and so the big panthers are specific about their choice
of target.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
So Waffi Mall is one of the kind of older
malls in Dubai but very fancy, still still has a
lot of these kind of high end jewelry shops.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Journalist Bradley Hope again.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
It's located in the heart of the old city of Dubai.
It's a very crowded area in a more dense part
of the city. Right now, the city is full of
these massive shopping malls, and all of them were the
biggest shopping mall in the world until a new one
just down the road was built. But Waffie Mall had
this kind of slightly old fashioned.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
Feel to it.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
The relatively low security compared to some of the more fancy,
high end malls that had sprouted up. It made a
perfect combination for this kind of smash and grab robbery technique.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
The target is set a graph boutique located inside the
low security Waffy mall in the middle of the city.
But they can't just carry all that loot back through
the mall to the parking lot. No, they need to
find a way to take the car to the jewels,
or maybe two cars. Serbian journalist Yelena Zorich is one
(11:31):
of the leading experts on the Pink Panthers. She's more
comfortable speaking Serbian, so you're hearing a translator. Stragi remalgan
and criminal.
Speaker 5 (11:44):
They had to picture in their heads exactly how everything
is going to happen.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
The Panthers spent weeks getting familiar with the city and
carefully studying their targets.
Speaker 5 (11:56):
It was very risky, and this is why they had
to be very familiar with the area. They couldn't just
show up to see the jeuror and say, okay, we
like it here, that this is.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
How we're going to do it.
Speaker 5 (12:06):
They would come and rent an apartment and connect with
other Serbians as well in Dubai. Because they had to
know the city first of all, they had to feel
the pulse of the city.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
They had to feel the poles of the mall.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
They make sure that they raised no suspicion at this
stage of the operation. They managed the details carefully.
Speaker 5 (12:25):
It was a nice apartment so they could fit in,
they could look like regular tourists who was visiting the ViiBE.
And also it was in a good pot which was
not too far away from the mall, so they had
good access from there.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Each member of the Ping Panthers team has a specific
role to play. During this preparation phase, boy and Imitic
acted as a sort of a project manager.
Speaker 5 (12:50):
She was there for the logistics. She was there to
connect everybody to put everything in motion. She was using
the credit cards. She is the one who pays for
thinks all the apartments they were renting, all the cars
they were renting or they were buying.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Is Boyana who visits the graft store multiple times, dressed
and expensive clothes. She blends write in with other shoppers,
all while gathering intel on the stores operations.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
As a young good looking girl.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
Other people from the jewelries, they didn't suspect that they
would do something.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
With Boyanna's help, the Panthers identify the most valuable merchandise.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Which was worth eleven million ears.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
They studied the security system.
Speaker 5 (13:31):
They were aware of the fact that they were security
cameras everywhere, and.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
They determined the best time of day for the robbery,
just before ten pm, right as the mall is closing.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
They were aware of the fact that it's very dangerous
and they didn't want to kill someone during this section
because that was possible if you come in the middle
of the day with two cars and a shopping mall,
that someone might end up as a victim.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
This is an important point. The Pink Panthers take every
precaution to make sure that no one gets hurt or
worse killed during their heists, because that's what gets you
on the radar of INTERPOL, the international criminal police organization
based in France. Interpol works with law enforcement in one
(14:19):
hundred and ninety four countries to go after criminals who
cross international borders, but they're generally focused on crimes that
are more urgent than jewel heists.
Speaker 5 (14:29):
Interpol is not going to chase you that much if
you are not a murder and that's why every time
Pink Panthers were working, they were very careful not to
harm anyone in their heights.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Then they were.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
Spectacular in the way they were doing it. They took
a lot of money, definitely, but they will saying okay,
we're not going to kill anyone, so yeah, we're not
going to be that interesting to Interpol.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Being interesting to Interpol can result in them issuing a
red notice. An urgent bulletin Interpol sends out to law
enforcement agencies all around the world. When that happens, you
can be arrested and extradited from almost any country. So
(15:14):
the Panthers decide to strike just before the Waffe mall
is set to close for the night. Fewer people in
the mall, fewer people in harm's way, and after weeks
of careful planning and preparation, the Panthers are ready. As
the day of the robbery approaches, there is one last
(15:36):
piece of the plant to be completed, the getaway cars,
and the Pink Panthers have something quite specific in mind,
like the fancy apartment and Boyana's elegant clothes. The Panthers
pay close attention to image. It's partly camouflage, but it's
also a theater. There's still a black Audi assayed, a
(15:59):
luxury s done worth one hundred thousand dollars plus. To
blend in here, you need a high end car, but
they can only find one in Dubai, and their plan
calls for two cars, so they drive ninety minutes to
Abu Dhabi to steal a second S eight. This is
not a practical decision. They're planning to put on a show.
(16:23):
So on the evening of the heist, as the mall
is preparing to close for the night, the black Audi
backs up to the entrance doors. Soon the white car
pulls up directly in front of it. I asked Ilan
to take me through the events in detail.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
So the first thing they do is they line up
their cars in front of the mall, so their nose
to nose and Boyana's car she's facing backwards and the
Milan's car is in the opposite way. He's facing the mall,
the entrance to the mall, and then they rep their
engines and boom they take off exactly at the same time.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Footage from the malt security cameras captures the scene the
black Audi careening backward through the glass entrance doors across
the ornate marble floor of the mall. Just as reporter
Yelena Zoritch said, their cameras everywhere, and so we can
see this scene unfold from multiple angles. It's quite dramatic.
(17:25):
Boyana Mithch is behind the wheel of the black Audi.
She speeds backward down the mall corridor right up to
the jewelry store.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
They slam through the glass entrance of the mall. Then
they head toward that grass store, that jewelry store, which
is only a few hundred feet from the entrance. They
want a lot of extra weight in the back, so
they load up the trunks of the cars with cement locks.
It makes the cars like battering rams. It weaponizes the car.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
But tell me why is Boyana going reverse?
Speaker 4 (17:54):
Because when you go and reverse, you don't set off
the air bags. When you crash through the glass doors.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Boyana into the store entrance and the surrounding wall collapses.
Melanipuya is driving the white Audi. He and Boyana stay
in their cars, engines running while their fellow panthers run
in Overhead security footage shows black clad panthers, their faces masked,
(18:20):
hammers in hand. At this point, a shopper at the
mall takes out his BlackBerry and begins filming.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
So it's not high definition, it's grainy, but you can
see exactly what happened if you look closely. The panthers
they're coming out of the car. They're waving pistols around.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
The pistols are actually fake. It's another insurance policy. Nobody's
going to get trigger happy, no collateral damage. Cameras inside
the graph would Siek show two salesmen in suits running
to the back of the store. Behind them, a pink
panther moves calmly to the display cases one by one.
(18:59):
He smashed the glass, reaches in and tosses the merchandise
into a bag. That's the sound of the security alarms
going off, and that car honk is the signal from
Milan and Boyana to the others in side graph that
twenty seconds have passed. It's time to go. Cameras inside
(19:21):
graph show the ping panthers file out one by one.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
They run out of the store with a loot, and
they jump back in their cars. And if you look
carefully as they're driving away, you can see something smashing
the pieces of another world. So that's a shopper who's
watching from the balcony above had thrown down a plastic chair,
which is kind of a heroic act but also a
lame attempt to stop the thieves. Obviously would not have
(19:48):
slowed them down, but I give them an a for effort.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
And off, they go past the overhead security cameras and
back through the smashed entrance of the Waffi mall.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
From the very start to the very end, they're out
of there in fifty three seconds.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Fifty three seconds. Wow, And tell me, Alan, what were
the fifty three seconds worth of the end? What was
the value of the goods that they managed to grab?
Speaker 4 (20:14):
So accounts do vary, but we're talking about around three
point four million.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
The grainy video from that BlackBerry is posted online and
it goes viral. The whole thing feels intentional, like it's
about more than the money. The Pink Panthers know they'll
be caught on camera. They've gone to great lengths to
make sure that they had matching audis. It all seems
designed for maximum spectacle.
Speaker 6 (20:43):
But why.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Journalist Yolenos overrich again made you.
Speaker 5 (20:50):
They wanted to become an appius in the whole world
because if they become more famous, then it would get
them more better connections in this criminal world.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
They would have excellent recommendations.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
In the world of mafia and the world of drug
cartels that would be very useful in other aspects of
their life afterwards. That's why they got this crazy idea
to get inside with the two cars. No one probably
ever had the idea to do it in the shopping mall,
so they were very tempted with this idea to do
(21:24):
something so bold, so unique.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
If they're going for attention, it works. The Waffi mall
heist certainly brings them instant global notoriety.
Speaker 6 (21:38):
When to Buy hit, it was a complete explosion media.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Dmitriy Voinoff is a Serbian screenwriter and film scholar. He
has researched the Pink Panthers extensively for his film All
Panthers Are Pink. He sees a connection between the panthers
staging of this heist as a made for media moment
and earlier criminals.
Speaker 6 (21:59):
If you look at and Clyde, who were the criminals
performing for the media as their crime spree is happening.
So Tony and Kyde are the first ones who are
actually communicating with the media as their crime spree was
an ongoing thing. I think that the Pink Panthers are
(22:19):
almost there and back.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Home and Serbian. Their exploits play Well to.
Speaker 6 (22:25):
Buy had this element of brute force, which I think
communicating people here very much. The sense of everything is
possible if you have enough power.
Speaker 5 (22:36):
To pull it off.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Kelenasorich again.
Speaker 5 (22:38):
For most of them, they are not exactly heroes, but
like a modern kind of hero because they do this
glorious robbery heist, you know, with fast cars and everything,
so everything looks like a scene from the movie.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
The panthers seem to get pretty much everything they want
out of the Waffimol job, glory, money, and a feeling
of invincibility. As for the Dubai police, such a public
robbery and in a shopping district, no less, it's embarrassing.
Speaker 5 (23:13):
And the Dubai Police was humiliated in a way because
they asked for interpals help immediately. They did their best
to look for them. But the escape plan was even
better than the plan for the highest.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
So Elan. What was the escape plan?
Speaker 4 (23:32):
The freeway? There was an entrance to the freeway right
by the Waffi mall. I'm sure that's a big reason
why they chose them hall in the first place. They
mapped out where the police headquarters is located in relation
to the mall. They planned it all out. They were
able to jump on the freeway and make their escape.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Right and then what they had straight for the airport.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
Well, no, they have to get rid of the evidence
right the cars. So they're on the freeway I don't know,
for three maybe four minutes, and then they exit into
a residential area that is very close to the Royal Palace.
At the time, it's a newer area, remember Dubai. It's
still getting built up. So there are villas, there are ministries,
(24:11):
but they are also big patches of desert and between
two big mansions. They drive up the cars, they douse
them with gasoline and then they light them on fire.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
So they set their cars on fire, and now what Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:24):
They destroyed the two cars, but there's a third car.
They have a rental that's been parked there the whole time,
and so they get into that car and they drive
to the airport. The police don't even know what they're
looking for at this point. They have fake passports. They're
able to get to the airport with really no hassles.
They fly first to France by some accounts, and in
any case, they end up in Serbia safe and sound.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
It's a perfect plan. Almost in a moment, someone makes
a mistake. They leave the car windows closed and there
is not enough oxygen for the fire to burned the
cars completely, and so they do leave behind some evidence,
some DNA and there is something else. The police eventually
(25:11):
linked the last getaway car the when they rented back
to Boyana Yelenasorgsha Douglas Savaltomobile.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
Whenever they would rent cars, boats, motorbikes, whatever was useful
for the heist, they were always trying to rent it
under the counter by paying.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
That's how it works.
Speaker 5 (25:31):
Usually they offer more cash and than nobody records anything
about the person who rented it.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
But this wasn't an option in the UAE and Dumbai, it.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
Was definitely different because it's not that kind of a city.
So it's practically impossible to pay something in cash without
leaving your ID, without leaving your credit card.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
The panthers had stolen cars, they had fake passports. Clearly
they could have stolen credit cards if they needed them,
but Buyana seems to intentionally use her own card on
more than one occasion.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
So she said, Okay, I'm going to pay this with
my card. Everybody will know my name.
Speaker 5 (26:10):
The whole idea of the heist in Dubai was to
do something spectacular.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
They wanted to be known all around the world. Boyenna
agreed to do it that way because.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
As a part of the gang, she also wanted for
her name to become famous after.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
This, and according to Helena, there was another factor that
played into the decision.
Speaker 5 (26:31):
At that time, Serbia didn't have any kind of agreement
with the United Arab Emirates, so Interpol couldn't do anything to.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Her once she was back in Serbia. So the only
price they were sure.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
They would have to pay is that it wouldn't be
possible for them to come back to Dubai ever.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
But it's not the only price the Pink Panthers would
have to pay, because any crime that gets this much
attention demands a response. Even though they were careful not
to harm anyone, this robbery was not something law enforcement
could ignore, and so in the wake of the Waffi
Mull heist, Interpol issues that urgent worldwide bulletin the red
(27:14):
Notice calling for the immediate arrest and extradition of one
Boyana Mitag. Dubai is a turning point. The Waffi Mole
heist makes the Panthers the subject of worldwide attention for
better or worse, but it's only the latest in a
string of brazen smash and grab robberies that have been
(27:35):
going on for some time, and Laden Lazarevich, Buyana Mitic,
and Belan Li Poya are just three among many coming
up next on Infamous International. The Pink Panthers story. They
want the wow factor. By doing all of these things
that we associate with Pink Panther films, with James Bond films,
(27:56):
with countless heist films, I think it actually makes it very,
very hard to catch them. The Pink Panther's approach is
incredibly successful. First came this guy wearing a suit, and
then came another guy in a white mask. Almost immediately
after him. He shot the tear gas in the faces
of the quirks. They stole this tierra. The tier itselfsth
(28:16):
like two million dollars and they did it all in
about thirty two seconds, but millions of dollars it stolen.
Jewels presents its own set of issues the Pink Panthers.
Speaker 6 (28:27):
They like to hit high end shops, high end jewelry.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Here's the problem.
Speaker 6 (28:31):
If it's something that costs fifty million dollars from some
famous jeweler, everybody in the business.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Will know what it is.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
That's Next Time on Infamous International. The Pink Panther's Story.
Infamous International The Pink Panther's Story was produced by Best
Case Studios in association with Koda. Story hosted by me
(29:02):
Natalie ant Lava and written by Katrina Wolfe, Adam Pinkis,
Suszanne Meyers, and David Markowitz, with help from Brent Katz
and Matt Levin. For Best Case Studios Executive producer Adam Pinkis,
Senior producer David Markowitz, Producer Katrina Wolfe, Associate producer Hannah
(29:25):
Libovitz Lockhart, and consulting producers Julie Goldstein and Louis Spiegeler.
For Koda Story reporting by Lane Greenberg with associate producer
Rebecca Robinson. Edited and sound designed by Gaylan Mullens and
Max Michael Miller. Music by Dave Harrington. Archival producers Mark
(29:46):
Degra and Paul Dallas. This has been an Exactly Wright production.
Executive producers Karen Kilgareth Georgia Hart Stark, and Daniel Kramer,
with consulting producer Kyle L. Ryan
Host
Natalia Antelava
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