By: Marium Fatima
Seven real life money heists that inspired Money Heist
Spanish crime drama series Le casa de Papel, aka money heist, has taken the world by surprise. One of the few shows that people finish as soon as it's aired on netflix, not joking. So what makes it so interesting and different? It features a mastermind professor who plans the grandest money thefts of all time. It's not much of a money theft when you're printing your own money, say what? Here's the story of what inspired the ultimate crime drama series.
Number 7: Vastberga; the Heli-Heist:
A heist is so much more than just planning. It is the art of execution, the imagination, what is there in hindsight that you could never imagine. Though the genius minds Pina and Lobato said it was not a copy of any real life crimes, the world is full of unbelievably smart crimes, and some crimes could have inspired the story. The first one took place in 2009. In an episode, the professor causes a distraction by using an aircraft, which drops a huge sum of money from the air. A similar thing happened in 2009 in Stockholm suburb of vastberga. Around 5 AM, a stolen civilian helicopter, fancy right, landed on a cash depot roof, owned by security company G4S. It dropped a group of robbers owning guns and explosives. As they worked their magic inside the depot, they kept contacting the police and security to keep them calm. First they planted the suspected explosives in the police hangar to keep any helicopters from leaving. Next, they blocked access to the nearby roads by placing Caltrops. They were lucky enough to escape that day with $5.3M, but 7 of them ran out of luck and were arrested the next year.
Number 6: Forteleza; Tunnel vision:
This one happened on August 6th, 2005, planning to rob a whopping $70M. The best way to go is to go underground. There are so many spicy underground heists, but the Brazil Central Bank is by far the most mind boggling. Like what the professor and his squad achieved in the series, a heist happened in Forteleza. Picture an 80-meter underground tunnel connecting a central property to the brazil central bank's vault. It's no fun and games when i say they reached it five whole months later on the weekend in august. Was it luck or planning that there was no staff around that time? The tunnel was not the average dirt covered one. It had lighting, wood paneling and even rudimentary air conditioning! The police later estimated that the building must have cost the robbers around $200,000. The thieves left no detail to imagination. They set up a landscaping business in the plot they occupied and offered 'synthetic grass' with complete advertisement and promotional baseball hats. They did this so that no one would question them about all the dirt from the tunnel. Purely genius. In a few days, they could transfer £7,716 via a pulley system, which was untraceable, uninsured, no strings attached. When the crime surfaced, the police found nothing but traces of a white powder, which the thieves spread to cover their fingerprints. Just like in the series, the robbers took off in 11 cars; in different directions across Brazil. Some ended up being arrested, some were kidnapped and held for ransom by other criminals, and some went to achieve other heists.
Number 5: São Paulo; Identity theft:
I have heard of people dyeing their hair for a change of personality. Still, these robbers were in the mood of much more as the professor demonstrates in the series on and on how the same robber can pass as a completely different person, given that they change their identity, like the professor did when he became a clown in an episode of the show. On August 27th, 2011, a group of 12 men in uniform grey suits went to Banco Itau and told them that they were there to change some furniture; the guards knowing that the bank was continually renovated, let the men in. Upon entering, the robbers held the guards captive and forced them to turn off the CCTV and open the doors for the second team of robbers who had the armed tools which would facilitate getting into the vault's security deposit boxes. It makes sense that only 5 out of the 120 victims filed a police report because they must have been 'told' not to do so, just like in the show when the robbers offered the victims money to keep them quiet. After 10 hours of the theft, worth $58.5M, the robbers even ordered fast food in the meanwhile, yikes. It was till much later that the police learned their identities and recognized them as the same people who looted the Central Bank of Brazil 6 years earlier.
Number 4: Monroe, Crowd cover:
Given the amount robbed, this heist did not deserve to be on this list probably. However, it was meticulously executed so beautifully planned that even the 'prosecutor' commended the thief on his creativity. On September 30th, 2008, it happened using many decoys, just like the professor did numerous times in the show including decoy, robbers, getaway cars, government assassins, etc. It is possible to think the Washington bandit might have inspired some of the beloved show's ideas. The robber posted an ad on craigslist calling for landscapers, offering high hourly wages. And get this, he specified in the ad that the workers were supposed to wear blue shirts and yellow vests, safety goggles, respirators, and gather at a bank parking lot. We can assume what happens; next, the robber showed up at the same time and attire, went straight for the armed guard, grabbing his bag of money containing $400,000, ditching his clothes. He did the craziest thing after this. He jumped on a waiting inner tube and 'floated' to a getaway car. However all this could not help the robber when the police identified his DNA from his mask.
Number 3: Beirut; Bei-Rut Force:
As much as the drama series sometimes feels like fiction, it most certainly can be real life. On January 20th, 1976, amidst all the chaos of Lebanese civil war, the robbers blasted into the British Bank of the Middle East building, securing an empty lobby with grenade launchers under the mortar fire cover. Most people say that they blasted into the heart of the bank through the neighboring church. They then blasted themselves into the vaults with the help of mafia safecrackers. Lots of explosions later came the calm. The robbers patiently waited two days, loading the valuables in three trucks. The trucks were protected by their guns and the wrath of the war around them. It seems unrealistic, but the Beirut bank's robbers still have not been caught for the theft of $210M.
Number 2: Kent; Insider trading:
Silent crimes are the most unpredicable. Creeping their way into their success and the police can never seem to suspect them. How the professor uses an inside man in the show for his heist was a similar inspiring incident in the Kent county of southeast England. Cash depots are usually a perfect jackpot sort of deal for robbers. The thieves led by a martial arts contender manipulated an inside man to their side. The police officer, not so fair, fixed a tiny camera in his belt buckle, creative, and filmed every inch of the depot. The thieves knew they had to bring their A-game in disguising themselves from everyone inside, so they hired a makeup artist who gave them prosthetic noses and chins even. They kidnapped the depot manager including his wife and child because they needed a pass to get inside the depot. The professor in the show was not above kidnapping a family for his benefit either.
Like any other bank robbery, employees held captive, trucks being filled with the loot of $92,000,000, these guys were done within an hour. The robbers missed out on one detail in all this precise work, though. They forgot that their inside man was, after all, an 'inside' man and could spill their identities to the police upon pressure. This did not happen in Kent because the robbers were smart enough to leave all kinds of prints in their homes. However, an inside man did dig everyone's grave in the 1983 London Brinks Mat robbery. Imagine an inside man singing Taylor swift's lyrics; "baby, I'm a nightmare dressed like a daydream."
Number 1: Antwerp; High and Low:
In 2003, a gadget play robbery took place in antwerp. This was like a waltz dance for the robbers because they glided from one security alarm to another. They were starting with getting a safety deposit box in the Diamond Center. This acquired the robber's access to the interior of the depot. They soon realized that it was too well guarded. However they did not give up. They pulled all sorts of research on how to disrupt the alarm system in the vault. They attached a finger width size camera on a wall, which fed the guards' schedule signals to electronics in a nearby fire extinguisher. The same camera fed signals of a second physical key to the door as well. The most diabolic alarm system the vault had was the dual magnetic system. Whenever the gate would open it would separate two plates of magnets immediately informing the police. The robbers fixed the two magnet plates with a piece of aluminum which prevented the magnets from separating. They unhinged the magnet from the door without ever setting off the alarm. Similarly they dismembered eight more systems, including a heat sensor, combination dial, keyed lock, a seismic sensor, using very low tech supplies like hair spray, tape, etc. they were successful in the end, acquiring around $100,000,000 worth.
There's no stopping what starts in one's mind. Planning a heist is a work of sheer genius and constitutes 60% of the actual heist. These real life robberies are only a few of the master mind crimes that have happened in the world.
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