Throughout history, daring thieves have captured the public‘s imagination with their brazen and audacious heists. From ancient times to the modern day, robbers have targeted everything from precious jewels and priceless works of art to massive sums of cash and even cryptocurrency. While the methods and technologies have evolved over time, the basic human desires driving these crimes – greed, thrill-seeking, desperation – remain constant.
As a historian, examining these heists offers a fascinating lens into the values, security, and cultural attitudes of different eras. The most famous historical heists have become legendary, immortalized in books, films, and the popular imagination. But beyond their entertainment value, what can these heists teach us about the societies in which they occurred and the timeless allure of the big score?
Ancient and Medieval Heists
One of the earliest recorded heists in history occurred in 321 BC, when one of Alexander the Great‘s generals, Ptolemy, made off with the conqueror‘s embalmed body in order to provide legitimacy to his new dynasty in Egypt. Ptolemy brought Alexander‘s corpse to Egypt and initially displayed it in an ornate gold and crystal sarcophagus in Alexandria. The location of the tomb, and Alexander‘s body itself, later disappeared and remains one of antiquity‘s greatest mysteries.
Dr. Ian Worthington of Macquarie University, an expert on Alexander the Great, believes the theft of Alexander‘s body had immense political significance: "If Ptolemy couldn‘t have the empire itself after Alexander‘s death, he could at least have the conqueror‘s body in his keeping, thus preserving the aura of Alexander in death."
During the Middle Ages, one notorious thief and conman nearly made off with England‘s Crown Jewels. In 1671, Colonel Thomas Blood ingratiated himself with the keeper of the jewels and arranged a private viewing for his companions, who were actually accomplices in disguise. Blood knocked the elderly keeper unconscious, stabbed him, and smashed the glass case holding St. Edward‘s Crown, the Sovereign‘s Orb, and the Sovereign‘s Scepter. Blood and his gang made it as far as the Tower perimeter with the crown and orb before guards caught up to them. In an incredible twist, Blood managed to talk his way into not only a royal pardon, but an estate in Ireland granted by King Charles II. Historians believe Blood‘s audacious attempted heist and silver tongue made him something of a folk hero during a time of great resentment against the perceived extravagance of the royal family.
20th Century Heists
The 20th century saw an explosion in high-profile heists as banks flourished and valuable assets became consolidated in secure locations. In 1911, Italian museum worker Vincenzo Peruggia pulled off what is perhaps the most famous art heist in history when he stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre and kept it hidden in his apartment for two years before trying to sell it to the Uffizi in Florence.
A few decades later, the infamous robbery of the Brinks building in Boston shocked the nation. On January 17, 1950, 11 men in Halloween masks, armed with submachine guns, broke into the Brinks Armored Car depot in Boston‘s North End and stole $1.2 million in cash and $1.5 million in checks and securities – a haul worth roughly $29 million in today‘s money. At the time, it was the largest robbery in U.S. history.
The meticulously planned heist, which took two years to come to fruition, captured the public‘s imagination and marked a new era in organized crime. According to history professor Robert Allison of Suffolk University, "The Brink‘s heist represented the beginning of the modern armored-car robbery and how organized crime was changing. It relied on the careful cultivation of inside information and a level of planning that was remarkable for the day."
But the Brink‘s heist would soon be dwarfed by an even bigger and more audacious robbery across the Atlantic. In August 1963, 15 men pulled off the largest train robbery in British history, holding up a Royal Mail train and making off with a record £2.6 million in cash (equivalent to over £50 million/$60 million today). The brazen heist, which involved co-opting a train driver to stop the mail train at a remote location, shocked the nation.
"The Great Train Robbery had all the elements of a classic heist," says British crime historian Nige Tassell. "The romantic old-school notion of the train robbery, the huge amount of money stolen, and the audacity of the gang all made it front-page news not just in Britain but around the world."
While the robbers had pulled off what seemed like the perfect crime, they were undone by a series of mistakes that led police right to them. Most of the gang members were caught and given hefty prison sentences, although the ringleader escaped and was on the run for several years before being apprehended in Brazil.
The latter half of the 20th century saw a number of other high-profile heists that grabbed international headlines:
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In 1976, a gang of thieves stole an estimated ¥300 million ($2 million) from a Toshiba factory in Japan in a daring helicopter heist, landing on the roof of the building and tying up employees before making off with the company‘s payroll cash.
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In 1978, $5.8 million in cash was stolen from a Lufthansa Airlines cargo terminal at JFK Airport in New York in a heist orchestrated by notorious mobster Jimmy Burke. At the time, it was the largest cash robbery ever committed on American soil.
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In 1983, £26 million (equivalent to roughly £90 million today) in gold bullion was stolen from the Brink‘s-Mat depot near London‘s Heathrow Airport. Most of the gold was never recovered and much of it is believed to have been melted down and sold.
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In 1990, two men posing as police officers tricked their way into Boston‘s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum after hours and made off with 13 works of art valued at $500 million, including pieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Manet. It remains the biggest art heist in history and the artwork has never been recovered.
These heists, while daring and dramatic, pale in comparison to the biggest bank heist ever committed. In 2003, on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein sent his son Qusay to the Central Bank with a handwritten note ordering the removal of nearly $1 billion in U.S. dollars and euros. Over the course of five hours, bank employees loaded up three large trucks with the cash. While some of the money was later discovered hidden in the walls of one of Saddam‘s palaces after he was deposed, much of it vanished and was never accounted for.
| Heist | Year | Amount Stolen (Inflation Adjusted) |
|---|---|---|
| Central Bank of Iraq | 2003 | $1 billion |
| Antwerp Diamond Center | 2003 | $100-200 million |
| Knightsbridge Security Deposit | 1987 | $98 million |
| Securitas Depot, Kent | 2006 | $92 million |
| Brink‘s-Mat Warehouse | 1983 | $90 million |
| Hatton Garden Safe Deposit | 2015 | $70 million |
| Dunbar Armored Robbery | 1997 | $29 million |
| Lufthansa Heist | 1978 | $23 million |
| British Bank of the Middle East | 1976 | $20 million |
| Great Train Robbery | 1963 | $60 million |
The Digital Age of Heists
In the 21st century, the nature of heists has evolved along with changes in technology and the global financial system. Bank vaults and armored cars have given way to digital wallets and cryptocurrency exchanges as the prime targets for large-scale thefts.
In 2016, hackers exploited vulnerabilities in the SWIFT banking communication network to steal $81 million from the Bangladesh Central Bank – and were only prevented by a fluke from getting away with the full $1 billion they attempted to swipe. The massive scale of the heist and the fact that it was conducted entirely remotely highlighted the new risks facing an increasingly interconnected global banking system.
Cryptocurrencies, with their decentralized networks and promise of anonymity, have become a prime target for digital heists. In 2014, $460 million in Bitcoin was stolen from the Mt. Gox exchange in Tokyo, leading to the company‘s bankruptcy. At the time, it was the largest crypto exchange in the world, handling over 70% of all Bitcoin transactions.
Even bigger crypto heists followed: $530 million stolen from the Coincheck exchange in 2018, $600 million taken from the Poly Network in 2021. While some of these heists were conducted by lone hackers, others appear to have been the work of sophisticated nation-state hacking groups, such as the Lazarus Group linked to North Korea. These digital heists exposed the vulnerabilities and growing pains of the maturing cryptocurrency industry.
"Crypto assets are especially appealing to thieves for the same reasons they are prized by their owners – they are unregulated and pseudo-anonymous," explains Dr. Tom Robinson, a cryptocurrency expert and chief scientist at Elliptic. "The irreversible nature of crypto transactions also means there are limited options for clawing back stolen money."
The Enduring Allure of the Big Score
From Alexander the Great‘s body to billions in Bitcoin, history‘s biggest heists have always held a powerful grip on the public‘s imagination. There is an undeniable romance and allure to the figure of the gentleman thief, the mastermind who can outsmart the system and get away with the perfect crime.
In more recent times, heist movies like Ocean‘s 11, The Italian Job, and Heat have glamorized the meticulous planning, team assembly, and nail-biting execution of the big score, while conveniently glossing over the destruction and turmoil that often gets left in their wake.
"The public has had a long fascination with heists and robberies, in part because there‘s something very appealing about someone who‘s able to live outside the boundaries of polite society," says Dr. Heith Copes, a criminologist at University of Alabama Birmingham who has interviewed dozens of burglars and robbers about their motivations and methods.
At their core, historical heists represent a thrilling escape from civilized society and tidy codes of moral conduct. We are drawn to the outlaw who takes what they want, who follows no authority except their own personal rebellion against an unfair world.
Even as the damage and human cost of these crimes goes largely ignored, the more enduring myth of the heist – the belief that one can outsmart the rich and powerful at their own game – continues to captivate us. It‘s the same human desires that still drive crowds to Vegas, to Wall Street, to the gold fields and crypto exchanges where fortunes can evaporate overnight. The pursuit of wealth and status by any means remains a constant temptation as old as time.
But while we may romanticize the vigilante thieves who break the rules and sometimes get away with it, these heists also underscore the eternal conflict between individual greed and the stability and security of society. Each heist represents a tiny revolution against the established order, a brute force redistribution of treasure. And inevitably, it is the public who is left to clean up the mess and foot the bill – whether in the form of higher insurance premiums, stricter security protocols, or eroded faith in civic institutions.
Ultimately, the history of heists reminds us that the glittering promise of the big score is often an illusion, a siren song luring the foolhardy onto the rocks. Real lasting wealth is more often the result of diligence, patience, and cooperation rather than a mad scramble for unearned riches. If these audacious crimes teach us anything, it is to be ever vigilant of our baser instincts which, left unchecked, can so easily overpower our reason and restraint.
