Heist Club

It's October 29,1964 and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City is closed for the night. In the darkness of night, the city lights stream through the window, gently illuminating exhibits, including… The JP Morgan Hall of Gems and Minerals. Then, a foot pokes through an open window. Two men slide down a rope and tiptoe through the room. They cut into the glass casings protecting the jewels with the ease of se...

On a Monday morning in Nice, France, customers at a bank grow agitated as they wait to make their deposits. The short line grows into a small crowd. The vault door is stuck. And as the hours tick by, the door won't budge. Not even the manufacturer can get it open. In the end, frustrated employees take a jackhammer to the wall and make a hole big enough to peek through. Instead of neatly sealed deposit boxes, the employees find scat...

It's late August in Lake Tahoe in 1980, and crowds of tourists flood the casinos that mark the border between Nevada and California. One such casino is Harvey's Casino and Resort Hotel, the stateline's oldest gambling establishment. And just as the sun peaks out over the horizon a white van pulls up to the casino's delivery port. Then, two men in matching white jump suits unload a massive item hidden under a sheet. They wheel it pa...

On the night of August 14th, 1775, two dozen men sneak through the streets of St. George's in Bermuda, right under the British governor's nose. Only guided by moonlight, they trek to the top of a hill and face a stone building. Carefully and quietly, they chisel their way through the roof and send a man inside. What waits for him is over 3,000 pounds of gunpowder. They carry the barrels out to sea onto waiting ships. Their destinat...

It's Memorial Day 2025 and employees at Dr. Conkey's Candy and Coffee in Simi Valley, California open the shop for the holiday. They are immediately met with disarray. There is paint splashed over the cameras, entire shelves are toppled over, and the safe is open. Strangely, there is also a hole in the wall leading to the business next door, 5 Star Jewelry and Watch Repair. The jewelry store owners rush over, fearing the worst, and...

It's the Wednesday after Easter weekend 1976 in Melbourne, Australia, and a good chunk of the city spent the weekend at the racetrack. Bookies handled swarms of people placing bets and left with a record breaking payload by the end of the melee. Now counting their winnings at the Victoria Club, they hear a bang, and six men wielding World War 2 era machine guns swarm the bookies and take their entire cash haul of $15 million AUD, m...

Shortly after 1 AM on February 22, 2006, an employee at the Bank of England's cash depot in Kent sees his boss on the exterior cameras asking to be let in. Strange, because he clocked out at 5:30 the evening before and wasn't expected until the morning. But, there's a police officer with him so it must be important. He buzzes them in and the second the door opens, the policeman draws his weapon. Over the next hour, seven armed men ...

It's a spring morning in a Texas swamp where an elusive alligator snapping turtle hunts for his meal. He spots some meat floating right in front of his face and chomps down. Instead of a delicious meal he feels the sharp sting of a hook; and now there are hands on his shell. He wriggles and thrashes against his attackers as they hoist him into a johnboat and manhandle him into a mesh bag. He's taken to shore and tossed into the bed...

It's a beautiful Sunday morning in Oslo as visitors enter the Munch Museum, home to the acclaimed artist's paintings. But shortly after 11 AM two armed men crash through the doors and order everyone to the ground. They run around the gallery until they reach their destination: The Scream. After one, two, three tugs, they rip the iconic painting from the wall. On their way out, they rip down a second painting, Madonna, then run to a...

It's a beautiful morning off the coast of West Africa on June 4, 1944. There isn't a cloud in the sky nor harsh ocean waves. The crew of the USS Guandalcanal, led by Captain David Gallery, sails north to refuel after their failure of a Nazi submarine hunt. But ten minutes later, there's a ping on the sonar. It's a sub just 800 meters away and 60 feet below the surface. Captain Gallery knows this is his moment to make history, to do...

It's Saturday night in Fortaleza, Brazil, and as usual the popular tourist destination is bustling with night life. That energy extends beneath the surface where a group of men crawl through a tunnel of their own making. Their destination? The vault underneath Brazil's Central Bank. In conveyor belt fashion, they shuffle box after box down the line and into their safe house. At the end of the night, they've managed to steal $70 mil...

On November 6, 2000, London's Millennium Dome opens for the day. A meager crowd walks through the gates alongside an even smaller security staff. As the visitors ponder the exhibitions, they hear a crash outside, and a loud rumbling that gets closer…and closer. Then, an excavator crashes through the side wall, heading straight towards the De Beers diamond exhibit. Tourists and employees dive out of the way as the excavator s...

In October 2018, in the dead of night, a mini-van drives along the California coast on the famous Route 101. When it pulls over to a cliff's edge, the van's passengers get out. But they don't take photos or enjoy the view. No, what they seek sits on the side of the jagged mountain. With their backpacks and ropes secured, they rappel over the edge. Minutes later, they climb back up, now with full backpacks along with even more bags ...

On a February evening in 1785 Paris, an intermediary for Queen Marie Antoinette enters a famous jewelry shop to secure a diamond necklace for the royal: the most expensive in history. She has been sent on strict instructions to keep the transaction secret, lest the king find out. The intermediary leaves as quick as she came, with a promise that the queen will start sending payments come summertime. When she puts the necklace in her...

Just outside of Montreal, a vast industrial warehouse holds thousands of barrels of Canada's most valuable export: maple syrup. Each barrel weighs 1500 pounds and is worth nearly 20x more than crude oil. A single surveyor is making his routine inspection — climbing up on and around the barrels to make sure everything is up to snuff, when one barrel falls to the ground. Empty. It would not be the only one. A gang of sticky-fin...