‘The last twenty-four hours before a heist take forever. You are ready. You can’t wait. You are already thinking about the money. It’s a kind of high that programs your mind. You are excited. You just want to get it done. That moment when there is no turning back, when it is about to go down ... all your senses come alive: your eyes, everything comes alive. It’s extreme, like a phenomenal rush of ecstasy. It’s the thing that makes you want to do it again.’ From the horror of the 2006 Villa Nora heist – where four security guards were burnt alive in their armoured vehicle after a ferocious fight-back against highly trained mercenaries – to the 2016 robbery of a cash centre in Witbank, where a gang made off with almost R104 million after impersonating police officers, Heist! is an impeccably researched exposé of an endemic crime phenomenon that some analysts warn could bring South Africa to its knees. Using the information gleaned from thousands of pages of court documents and press reports, as well as interviews with scores of police officers, crime intelligence agents, prosecutors, defence lawyers, researchers, journalists, security guards and the criminals themselves, Heist! provides an unprecedented insight into a crime that has increased by a staggering 49 per cent in the first eight months of 2017 alone. As informative and thought-provoking as it is distressing, this is a book by an investigative journalist at the top of her game.
Unlock the cultural obsession with high-stakes robberies in Heist, a collection of the world’s greatest real-life break-ins. From the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s famous art heist to the disappearance of the Marie Antoinette watch, these 100% true stories will have you on the edge of your seat—and double checking the locks on your doors! Have you ever watched a movie like Ocean’s Eleven and thought: “There’s no way that could ever actually happen, right?” Wrong. In the US alone, there have been dozens, if not hundreds, of heists, from bank break-ins to museum plunders. In this premium compendium, we’ll walk through the most impressive ones, diving into the details behind each case, the detectives that led the investigations, how the events unfolded, and what mysteries remain. The hardcover book will explore the top 50 incidents, including: 1. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Heist: In March of 1990, two men dressed up as police officers and sweet-talked their way past security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, MA. After tying up the real guards, these men dismantled and packed up 13 works of art, loaded them onto a truck, and drove off into the night, making the 81- minute breach one of the most expensive in modern history. Today, it remains the single largest property theft in the world. 2. The Great Train Robbery: Not all heists happen in buildings. In fact, one of the most popular ones was the 1963 train robbery in which nearly 2.6 million pounds was lifted from a Royal Mail train headed to London. Using intel provided by a man on the inside dubbed The Ulsterman, the group rigged the railways traffic light system to bring the train to an extended stop, during which time, they funneled the money from one of the carriages into a waiting truck by way of a human chain. 3. The French Bank Vault Tunnelers: On the morning of July 19, 1976, workers from a safe manufacturing company were called to the Société Générale bank to fix a faulty vault door that appeared to be jammed. When they drilled into the vault and peered in to diagnose the problem, though, what they found was not a loose screw or broken hinge, but a door that has been welded shut...from the inside. Also scattering the room was a couple of wine glasses, a portable stove, and a giant tunnel system that proved to be the method of transport for thieves, who had dug their way into the bank, spent the weekend there, and left with ten million in cash. 4. D. B. Cooper’s Escapades: The subject of many conspiracy theories, D. B. Cooper (not his real name) hopped on a Boeing 727 in a trench coat and sunglasses in 1971. When the plane had reached cruising altitude, Cooper hijacked it, extorting 200,000 dollars before strapping on a parachute, jumping out of the plane, and disappearing into thin air. This “aerial heist” remains unsolved to this day and remains one of the FBI’s most frustrating open cases. 5. The Botched Crown Jewels of England Theft: Back in 1671, a man named Thomas Blood (a cool name, by any standard) decided: “Eh, I’m gonna steal the Crown Jewels.” He reached out to Talbot Edwards, the keeper of the stones, with a proposition: if you give me a private viewing of the gemstones, I’ll have my nephew marry your daughter (a nephew who, naturally, turned out to not exist). At this private viewing, Blood knocked out Talbot, smashed the jewels into pieces and threw the shards into his pockets, hoping to make a run for it. Though he didn’t manage to escape, he did manage to escape jail time: The King at the time was so amused by this failed attempt that he let Blood off scot-free. And that’s just the start of it. Plastered with gorgeous photography and big, sleek pages, Heist looks as good as it is captivating. Crack the code of the world’s most elusive capers, from the popular tales your great grandad told you about to the ones that have been long forgotten.
To catch a leopard wear diamonds. A year after THE BAIT, Ania Throne is on the prowl. Gone into hiding, she’s planned her next move to perfection, intent on winning her dangerous game of cat-against-cat with the Leopard. But Ania doesn’t know that even the best-laid heists have hidden flaws. Jerome Curtis has taken a job at a Hollywood movie studio to try and put his life back together. When a familiar face from the past shows up unexpectedly, Jerome realizes that much as he’s tried to forget her, there’s no escaping Ania. And this time, what she’s about to do could be her doom. The heist is on. Jerome must join with Ania again to bring down the mastermind thief who’s dead-set on not getting caught. Passion and vengeance collide as father and daughter bait each other in a high-stakes gambit, with Jerome caught in the middle. Because no matter how much Ania has tried to keep her lover safe, she’s only brought him back into the center of her ploy— and the Leopard intends to take full advantage of it. From the glamour of late 1950s Hollywood to a desperate chase in the ravines of Los Angeles, two leopards must hunt each other to the end. And only one of them can bring down its prey. THE HEIST is the thrilling conclusion in the To Catch A Leopard series, a dramatic romantic caper that began with THE STEAL and THE BAIT.
Art Heist is a gallery of the most famous stolen artworks that have never been recovered, and an examination of the heists and their subsequent investigations.
"The Vanishing Heist" is a captivating crime thriller that follows the determined detective Max, as he seeks to solve one of the most legendary unsolved cases of all time. The story is filled with suspense, drama, and action as Max and his team navigate the complexities of the criminal underworld to unravel the mystery behind the heist. As they pursue their investigation, they soon discover that the heist is connected to a series of recent robberies committed by a notorious criminal named Viktor Petrov and his gang.
Over the Easter weekend in 2015, an audacious gang of criminals robbed a safe depository in London's Hatton Garden, the centre of the UK's diamond trade. Shortly before, electrical cables under nearby Kingsway had caught on fire, disrupting the emergency services in the area. Coincidence? Alarms at Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd went off, but the police ignored them. The burglars were caught on CCTV taking jewellery worth up to $200 million. They had used specialist equipment, taking days to tunnel through the walls of the vault. Within a month nine suspects had been arrested and valuables seized from their homes. They were aged between forty-three and seventy-six, including a father and son. The question was, were they the same gang that had made a similar daring raid in Hatton Garden safe netting £1.5 million over the Christmas holiday in 2004. The culprits then were never caught. In 1986, a similar heist had taken place in Los Angeles where a gang drilled a 100- foot tunnel from a storm drain into the vaults of the First Interstate Bank in West Hollywood. It inspired the novel The Black Echo. Author Michael Connelly believes his book might have inspired the Hatton Garden heists, and has a grudging respect for the criminals. "There is no violence and they sweated for the money. And there is a certain class envy," he said. "We don’t feel too sorry for people who keep fortunes hidden away in safety deposit boxes. Part of us hopes the gang members are now lying on a beach somewhere." However, what the Hatton Garden heist so victimless? There have been suggestions that the safety deposit raid was linked to the murder of John 'Goldfinger' Palmer – a suspect in the 1983 Brink's-Mat bullion robbery who was gunned down in Essex in July. The question remains: was Palmer killed for tipping off police about possible suspects?
Read Along or Enhanced eBook: Each Origins: Whodunnit: Heists eShort is a single chapter from the full Origins: Whodunnit: Heists title, packaged as a mini eBook. Origins: Whodunnit: Heists eShorts include Bank Heists, Art Heists, Heists and Hostages, and Cash and Jewel Heists.
One of the most interesting things about crime-fighting is studying the crime itself. In Heists, part of Full Tilt's Origins: Whodunnit series, students will examine high-stakes theft through the history of heists involving cash, banks, art, and hostages.
