Transcript
The nation's favorite car buying site, Dundeele Motors, is home to the largest range of new and premium used cars from all of Ireland's trusted car dealerships. That's why you'll find Brady's Mercedes Benz on Dundeele. Visit the Brady's Mercedes Benz showroom on Dundeele to find your next car. Dundeele Motors, for confident car buying and deals to feel great about from all of Ireland's trusted car dealerships. Visit done deal. Ie today. This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Alticere Show. Stockholm Art Museum robbed a $4,000,000 in artwork, 10 under arrest. That's the on top of the title of the book, heist, an inside look at the world's 100 greatest heists, cons, and capers by my good friend, Pete Stiegermeier. Pete, why'd you write this book? I know we've talked about heist before on the podcast. I know you're fascinated by it, but tell us again. Oh, man. So I I actually I I didn't plan on writing a book at first. I I just really enjoyed doing my podcast, and then, the publisher found my podcast, said this would make a great book, and then we came up with a plan to, basically turn it into, kinda like a like a daily reader kind of thing. So it's not it's not the kind of book that you, you know, read through in one sitting, but I just it was fun to get to tell the story in a different medium of, like, some of my favorite heists and and, scams and things like that. It's a great read. I mean, so many interesting things. And I'm curious. Right. Okay. I wanna talk about some of these heists in particular, but, and and your heist include bank robberies, robberies of artwork, of diamonds, of books even, Bitcoin, of course. Everybody talks about Bitcoin heist. But if you were gonna do a heist today, what would you do? Because I feel a bank is too difficult to rob. I think a bank is too difficult, and also cash is too heavy. Like, you're gonna get winded carrying even, like, $100,000 in cash. Wait. Are you out of shape, Pete? Like, a $100,000. That's 10 stacks of $10,000, and each stack is a 100 a $100 bills. So so maybe not a 100,000, but if you're if you're, like, talking like a duffle bag full of cash, that's Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you fill a duffle bag with newspaper, that's gonna be, more than you wanna carry around. So for that, I would I feel like diamonds are probably the easiest way to go. But I guess if I could do my dream heist, I would I would rob a Freeport, like, probably, like, one of the ones in, like, Geneva or something like that. What what's that? What's a Freeport? So Freeports are they're kind of like a a legal gray area, and they're these giant, like, warehouses. They're insanely secure, but they're basically areas where the ultra wealthy can store, like, artwork and kind of like imagine safe deposit boxes, but at an airport. And but, you know, they're the size of, you know, office buildings or rooms. Like and this allows, like, the wealthy people to really use them as tax dodges. Because if you buy a painting for $10,000,000 and you just keep it in the Freeport, technically, like, they there's ways of there's ways of, like, doing that so that, like, you never actually pay the tax on it. And so you just kinda sit there, and it stores a value. You can sell it again at the Freeport to somebody else who just keeps it in their Freeport. And so there's, like, 1,000,000,000 of dollars in art and jewelry and all sorts of things that just sit in these Freeports where, you know, all these masterpieces are basically nothing, but they're they're kind of like NFTs at that point. And I guess the beauty of it is is that they're already engaging in illegal activity because they're not reporting the transactions. So they're avoiding taxes. So it's hard for them to, like, call the police if they're robbed. Exactly. And because they're technically like, they have, like, special jurisdiction. They're typically on international airports. So sometimes, you can get around, like, jurisdiction issues like that as well because it's very hard to to go in and it because it's considered part of in transit because it's still at the airport. So, okay, let's let's plan this heist right now. So I'm trying to be there's Freeports in the United Kingdom. There's a lot of Freeport's in the UK. There's all these maps for them. Let's say we're gonna pick some random one. There's one in Plymouth. In the location of Plymouth, the port's called the Freeport's called Devonport. But how would you know who which which parts of the Freeport have, like, a lot of, like, art like, expensive artwork or whatever? So so, typically, for something like that, you might wanna try, renting space in a Freeport. I see. So you have access and your face is seen and so on. Right. Or or if you wanna, like, really protect yourself, you know, you send, you send, you know, somebody in your stead. Like, we could send Jay and be like, hey. He's up for it. Jay's gotta earn his earn his living. And you could say, you know, I've got these, you know, I've got these paintings that I wanna, like, store here or whatever, and then you can kind of figure out how things work. And typically typically, things like this are gonna be, like, extraordinarily secure against pretty much every kind of threat. Like, most of the like, there's gonna be Monets that survive, like, nuclear bombings in these places. But How do they do that? Like, what kind of storage is this? So, typically, these buildings are, like, heavily, heavily fortified at, in terms of, like, concrete and other really strong, like, very thick walls and things like that. But then they'll also have things, like, fire dampening systems so that in the event of a fire, all the oxygen just immediately gets, like, sucked out of the room so that, like, fires can't happen there. They're protected against, like, flooding. They're protect it's really the the like, there's access badging and stuff like that, so they would know that, okay. Like, Jay, you know, came in here. He only has access to this. So it's very like, there's a lot of defense and depth is what we call it. Like, a lot of different layers of security working together. But your first step would be trying to, you know, get eyes on and figure out, you know, how these places work or try to find, you know, a security guard that, you know, thinks he could be getting paid more or something like that and try to try to get your way inside that way. That's tricky though because you can you ever really trust the guy if you're trying to turn a security guard? No. You like, it's it's really hard to do. Like, that's why a lot of times you have to go like, you see in the movies and things like that, but it's not that much of a stretch where, like, you know, they have to, you know, really try to get that person in a compromising position and, you know, make them realize that, you know, if, if you turn on me, like, what's gonna happen to you is worse than what's gonna happen if the cops get you. Right. It needs to be a combination of, like, blackmail and bribery. Exactly. And that's but there's, like, that old saying too. It's like, if she'll cheat on you, she'll cheat with you, or if she'll cheat with you, she'll cheat on you. And it's kind of the same thing with, with, like, security people. You really can't trust. You know, if you're gonna get somebody to betray their employer and do that, the chances are, like, they're not they're not gonna be as loyal to you either. If the cops come, and offer them immunity, there there's a good chance they're gonna give you up. And they might not have access to everything either. Like, you'd have to get, like, a top person who has access to everything. Exactly. And that's, like, that's a big that's a big issue with it. Like, that security guard might, you know, be able to open this door, but then everything else is is here. Or sometimes in cases like these, just like safety deposit boxes, that security guard might not have access to your specific or to, you know, to your room, like, because you create your own, unique PIN, and they don't have that. So it's compartmentalizing the risk, which is a great strategy, but it makes it much harder to to try to steal. I feel like this might not be the best place to to to try our first heist together. No. I no. Maybe not the first one, but that would be that would be the dream to build up to. What about, like, like a like a Christie's or a Sotheby's, something like that? So those those are probably a bit more doable. There's a lot of, a lot of similarly similarly, like, fortified, places like Harry Winston in Paris is a very secure jewelry store, but the Pink Panthers were able to hit that twice within the span of, like, 2, 3 months. Oh, yeah. You had a good story about that in the book. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it's definitely it's definitely possible. And anywhere there's people, there there's a way to to, you know, either manipulate or coerce them or to there's if there's a will, there's a way. I feel like okay. Here's a scenario. Let me run this by you. I'm I'm making a pitch. So you let say you go to a a Sotheby's auction, and you see someone buying. You you know who the art collectors are. You go to different art conferences. You know who the big collectors are. And sometimes these collectors probably store their art, but sometimes they just wanna put the art up in their house because it's beautiful art. They want they're proud that they have a Monet or or a Picasso, and they put it up there. And that's probably an easier it's probably easier to rob their house. I'm sure they've got all the security, but it's probably easier to rob that than, like, a Freeport. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It's way easier to once it's in the hands of, like, a private collector, that's typically going to be easier than the auction house, definitely easier than a a Freeport. But then sometimes too, you can think outside the box, and and criminals are starting to to do this a lot where, you know, do you want do you want the the Monet, or do you want the $150,000,000 that the Monet is worth? Well, I want the $150,000,000 that the Monet is worth, which brings me to the next question. How do you sell when everyone knows it's stolen? So that that is typically done through fences, and fences are basically, like, the pawn brokers of the underworld. And, again, they're very hard to, you know, to find trustworthy ones, but typically, they'll have, you know, pretty pretty good relationships with people once they're working together for a while. And the best person to buy paintings is typically gonna be the insurance company. So you'll see a lot of times, like, rewards for pieces. Like, they'll be like, well, it's way easier to, you know, anonymously turn this in and get the reward money than it is to try to find somebody to to buy this. I see. So let's say, you know, mister Art Buyer, loses his Monet, you know, through a heist, and it's insured for $50,000,000. You could sell it to the insurance company for 20,000,000 probably, And it's probably easier to make that transaction. Like, they wired some invisible account somewhere, and it's immediately wired out. It's untraceable. And, actually, how do you pull it off? Like, how do you make sure that the art and the money happen at the same time? Like, how does the insurance company trust the the guy the people who did the crime? So so that's a very, I I think I think some of that I I misspoke a little bit. A lot of times, like, these, like, when I was, like, saying insurance companies, I was saying, like, you're gonna get that $50,000,000 from the insurance company, like, if you can prove that it was, like, stolen and stuff like that. And so there's there's a lot of people that, you know, have painting stolen so they can collect the insurance money. And then, you know, later on are able to, buy the piece back quietly, sometimes. Or but, yeah, it's it's kinda hard to because so many so much of the stuff, like, is, like, backroom dealings that it's it's hard to, like, really nail down, like, super specifics with that. But sometime like, reward money like, a lot of times these pieces are being held for, like, ransom against the reward money and things like that as well. So so, yeah, again, I guess the best buyer is the person you stole from because maybe he or she doesn't want to admit that it was stolen, or they want the painting. They've spent a 150,000,000 on it. Maybe they'll buy it for 10,000,000, 15,000,000, and just a cost of doing business. And I guess they have to just figure out how to trust the criminal. Yeah. That's definitely that's definitely, like, one of the, one of the bigger ways to to do that. A lot of times, though, like, the best thieves or, like, the smartest thieves at least will typically not steal something without a buyer lined up. So, like, sometimes sometimes people will steal on commission, and say, you know, I want this specific piece. Like, here's here's whatever the rate is gonna be for it. And so if you could do that, if you have a buyer lined up or if you have, like, a fence that, you know, you can trust to be able to move stuff, like, you know, those are those are typically gonna be the better ones to to try to go to because it's it's very hard to like, not a lot of people are gonna steal, like, a Monet without having a an endgame for it first. Well, like, why would anyone buy a stolen Monet when everybody in the world's gonna know that it's stolen? Well, that's I mean, I guess that's kind of the definition of, like, f**k you money. If, if if you're wealthy enough to to have the ability to do that, like, I think some people don't care. But then also, because art is such a store of value, they can sometimes sometimes use it for that as well. Even though it's been stolen. Like, if you're if you're discovered with a stolen piece of art, do you have to just return it to the original owner? So that is a fascinating question, and there's no clear answer on that, depending on the the provenance of the piece. So, like, a good a good example is, there's a group of people that stole a well, they kind of stole. You're you're actually gonna love this because it's the most efficient way to do it. They didn't even bother stealing the painting. They just intercepted the the transaction and were able to, like, steal the money for the purchase of the painting. How were they able to do that? Like, what what what happened? So they they actually employed, what we call a business email compromise where they, were able to send a phishing email to an auction house, get the person to to click on something or download something and install, you know, a backdoor for them to get into their networks. And then they just kinda sat on the networks watching traffic come in and out and being like, okay. This Thomas Constable landscape is gonna go up for auction here. You know, here's the buyers and stuff like that that we're thinking about. And then they were basically able to from that, from the auction houses or, from the gallery's own email address, like, send something out and say, hey. Like, I know you're purchasing this painting today. We just we just changed our the account that the funds are gonna be wired to. Please send it to this. And so they did, and they they got the money. They took off, and now there's, like, a big legal question about this, this gallery, you know, paid for the painting. They had an agreement. They sent the money. Like, they did all the due diligence on their part, and the gallery is like, well or the the previous owner is like, well, we didn't get the money for it. And so now the, like, the the painting is actually being held, like, basically in escrow until, legally, they can determine who gets to have that painting. That's ridiculous. The auction house should totally take responsibility. They or whoever was the intermediary. Who who was the intermediary here? The auction house. Yeah. So they should totally take responsibility for this. Yeah. I agree. Like, if your if your cybersecurity is not up to stuff to the point where you get taken for, you know, $20,000,000, I think this one was. That's on you. Like, sec security costs money. But, yeah, like, there there are sometimes, like, legal issues with that. There's another there's a car in Milwaukee that was, like, a 1937, Talbot, coupe, and it's, like, beautiful. It's called the teardrop. And somebody was actually that was a little bit more of a complex case where somebody broke in, stole the car, and then came back and stole, like the the person had, like, a second Talbot, that was basically just a parts car that he would sell, you know, this fender to this antique dealer because it's very hard to to get these cars. And, he was like, oh, I'd love to buy this, like, car from you, you know, for scrap or whatever, And, like, got a title signed by the person who had the car stolen from him, but he didn't, but basically forged the document. So it looked like he purchased the the teardrop, car outright from this guy. And so he had a clean title and things like that, but the car was stolen. And so that one is also still in a a legal limbo because that's, like, we don't really know Mhmm. Like, it it gets tricky. Like, criminals are getting very, very crafty with this stuff. Like, what's the most I mean, you write about a lot of heists that are current and some historical. What's the most and then I have some questions about some specific ones. So what's the most sophisticated, like, well done heist you've seen? I I would have to say the Antwerp Diamond Heist was definitely up there. That one should absolutely be a movie. Can you describe it? Absolutely. The Antwerp Diamond Heist was pulled off by a group of thieves, known as the school of Turin, which is just a great name for a group of thieves anyways. But their leader was a, an Italian man named Leonardo Notobartolo, and he set up an office in Antwerp. They have, just like New York City has a diamond district. Antwerp has the diamond, exchange, which is their diamond district and basically the diamond district for all of Europe. And so he set up a jewelry or, like, a, like, a jeweler's office and things like that. And, like we mentioned before, like, the Freeports had a safe deposit box in the diamond exchange. So he could go in there, you know, multiple times a day, put things in, take things out, make himself known, get the trust of the the people, but he was also, you know, very carefully, like, casing, identifying because they again, I think they had, like, 10 different layers of security on on their vault. It was really, really impressive. And so he was able to, hire a, like, a master key forger, an electronics expert, and a couple other, couple other just, like, top level thieves. They ended up breaking in to this insanely complex safe. Like, they, they installed, like, little pinhole cameras to see what the combination on the safe was as people were doing it. He actually ended up using, a can of hairspray the day of the heist. He, like, went in and sprayed the thermal sensors with just, you know, like, suave, hairspray. And that coated, that coated the sensors so that they couldn't pick up heat. And then there was a magnetic sensor on the door, so they they taped that altogether so that the sun the magnets never separated, and then just, like, stuck another magnet with that, like, to the wall of the vault so that when they opened up the vault door, it's still registered as closed. Like, they they had to do a lot of really out of the box thinking with this one, in order to be able to to get into this vault. And, like, 2 of the keys were, like, a foot long, that this guy had to, like, make copies of. And it was just just absolutely, like, mind blowing engineering. And there wasn't one of these things, like, in the diamond district in New York, if you go into someone's, you know, place where they're storing diamonds, you have to go in a door that locks behind you, and then someone in the other room unlocks the next door. There wasn't anything like that to There there was, but they they managed to to get past those doors as well, because, like, one of the their their key maker is known as the king of keys. He is actually the only person ever caught in this, like, there's basically just enough evidence, like, from him to know that he exists, but not to, like, identify him. And so what happened? So that then what happened? So this one is actually really funny because as sophisticated as this crowd, as this gang of thieves was, they one of the, one of the people in their crew, was this guy whose nickname was Speedy, and he was, he was not a very talented thief. He was he was just kind of there. They had him drive the car sometimes. But he started freaking out. He's like, oh, we're gonna be get caught. And he like, they basically on the on the getaway drive back to, back to Italy, he, like, stopped the car and started dumping out all the trash, that they had, you know, disposed of. And he was like, oh, we're just on the like, some random roadside in Italy. But ironically enough, like, this particular, like, road where they're on where where he was dumping the trash was, like, a problem area for the farmer who owned the land because people were always dumping trash there. And so he saw them and called the police, and then they came and saw, you know, envelopes that said Antwerp Diamond District. And they were able to find a piece of salami and a receipt for, like, a corner store for salami. And so this little piece of sandwich and the receipt gave them enough to, like, go and, like, check the security cameras. They saw, like, this really tall guy known as the monster buy the salami. And from there, they were able to to kind of that was the threat that they were able to to keep pulling on, and they arrested everybody except the king of keys. When they arrested them, was did they get all the diamonds back? No. They they got some of the diamonds back, but they did not recover all of them. And because it was nonviolent crimes, a lot of these people are already out of jail now and probably just have stashed potentially 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars. I always wonder, like, how many people are alive who they're living in some resort area. They're keeping a low profile, and they made they never made a dime in their lives, and then they made, like, 15,000,000 on some extraordinary heist, and that and that's the rest of their life. I you know, it's gotta be it's gotta be a good number, actually. Like, I I think the smart ones are the ones that do it once and then just retire off of that. Yeah. Now you there was one story you wrote that was intriguing. It was the Transylvania, book. It was like a heist from a library. Yes. Yes. That one, that one actually, Transylvania University in, I believe it's Lexington, Kentucky. So there's, like, University of Kentucky, UK, and then there's also Transylvania University. I would never let my kids apply to Transylvania University. That's just, like, the worst name. It's it's such a weird like, but I think that was like, that part of Kentucky was originally like, I think Jefferson wanted to call the region Transylvania. But but, like, one of the things that's really unique about that school is they have an incredible rare book collection. And some of the some of the books that they have, they had a first edition of On the Origin of Species by Darwin, but they also had a complete set of Audubon's Birds of America. And, like, this is first edition hand painted by James Audubon, and the books are enormous. I think each book weighed £75, and that was a side of 4 of them. And so these, these kids got the the brilliant idea. They're like, well, this book alone is worth, you know, 1,000,000 of dollars. Let's just go steal go steal these books. And so so, again, I'm gonna I'm gonna ask, like, if you have the the the first edition on the origin of species, who's gonna buy that knowing it was stolen? Like, it's obviously gonna be stolen. Well, they actually tried to they tried to fence it through Christie's, and, Christie's was able to smell them from a mile away. Like, they drove up to New York, had a meeting, and they're like, these teenagers like, they said that it was, like, their uncle died and, like, left it to them. Mhmm. But, like, pretty much the second they walked out, Christie's called the cops. So, like, these these guys have stolen material. So, like, what could you how could I mean, how could you fence something like that? Like, what do you do? Is there, like, a dark web for this sort of thing? Or So this one is actually really interesting. You could try to do it on the dark web, but, again, like, you're like, it's it's very hard to, you know, verify that what you're buying is authentic. Yeah. And so one of the, one of the thieves here, he somehow was able to find people online in Amsterdam willing to buy the book. But their stipulation, because, again, it's hard to verify things, was we'll buy it if you can get, like, Christie's or Sotheby's or somebody, you know, legitimate to verify its authenticity. And if that happens, we'll pay you, you know, $5,000,000 or, whatever the whatever the price they had worked out was. And and but they they went to Christie's. Could they have gone to anyone else, like a private verifier? They they might have been able to, but I think I think it had to be, like, Christie's or Sotheby's, or, like, whatever like, some similar tier just because, you know, they're putting the reputation on those books. And that's the kind of, like, guarantee that you need, if you're gonna buy something, illegal. So so they, I guess, they knew who the librarian was. They went they were going to the school of these students. They knew who the librarian was. What what happened then? So they actually they came up with a plan, and this is, like, just such a brilliant, like, college idiot plan. And so the first they they basically came up with an idea to to go and, you know, go up there, stun the librarian, take the books, and and kinda head down, but they they waited until the week of finals, which is a terrible time because they also wanted to graduate. Like, they were about to graduate, and they're like, well, we can't, like, risk our semester. And so they waited until everybody at the school was at the library. It's like the worst possible time. Yeah. Finals. Like, college gets up, but then they're like, oh, we need disguises. So they they tried to dress up as old men. And the first time they, like, walked into the library, their disguises were so bad that everybody just, like, immediately, like, stared at them and was like, what is up with these guys? And so they ended up, like, leaving because they're, like, everybody is watching us because their disguise is just so bad. So they waited until the next day to try again. And then at that point, one of them went upstairs, made an appointment to, to view this book because you had to have an appointment to to see the the rare book collection. And once he was with the librarian, a second, second thief came in. They used, like, a little a stun pen, and they were able to subdue this woman, and, like, handcuffed her zip tied her on the floor and things like that to try to steal the books. And then, one of the problems too is her name was, everybody called her BJ. And so they're like, it's gonna be okay, BJ. And so she's like, well, this is clearly, like, a student at the school because they call me BJ. No. But how did the student make an appointment? Wouldn't he have to use his name to make an appointment? He did use his name. So that's another pretty big Yeah. Indicator. That was another big indicator. And there was another, somebody else tried to make an appointment, using a pseudonym, but they did that, with their dad's cell phone number and, with a Yahoo email address that was also, like, very traceable back to back to, like, their family's So, like, were these people just, like, really stupid? Like, why would you make an appointment in your own name where you're planning on robbing something right then? Like, that is beyond stupid. It they they just they didn't think about anything at all. Like, they were they were very dumb. It was a miracle they got as far as they did. I mean, did they think so so they think they would sell on the origin of species, and it wouldn't matter what their name was? They would just disappear? Well, I I don't know that they really thought that far ahead of it. I thought that I think what they thought was we just had Steely's books, get them to Christie's, and then get them to Amsterdam. And so they they tried to take, like, some some basic steps. Like, he created a fake email address, as well to try to do some other communication, but he was doing it from his dad's cell phone plan. And so, like, all the call records and stuff like that, they just called his dad and, like, hey. Like, we know you're in New York, and it was it was over very quickly. Man. So so the I guess they while they were doing this robbery, though, someone saw them, right, and chased them. Yes. Multiple people, saw them. So they there was an elevator, and they also like, they didn't really have, like, a plan. So they had, like, backpacks that they stuffed some of the books into once BJ was subdued, but they had to use bedsheets to try to seal the Audubon books because they were so large. And so now you've got, you know, 7 or I think, like, almost £300 of books. If there's 4.75 pound books, like, in a bedsheet that they're trying to drag to the stairs, and then the elevator opens up. They see, like, another assistant librarian who realizes, like, this is not right. And so they they try to, like, run and flee, and they get lost and basically run through campus looking for the getaway van. And then they get in the van. The getaway driver panics because he borrowed his mom's car for this. And, like, basically, he was like, you guys have to get out. Like, I have to, like, get this car back to my mom in 20 minutes. And so he kicks him out in, like, a rough part of town. And then these guys, who had managed to still steal probably half a $1,000,000 in books because they had the, they had the Darwin book. They had a couple other first editions, like, with them that they ended up taking to, to Christie's in New York. But they almost got robbed just walking around the neighborhood because they're like, what are these guys doing? And so they had to run out of this neighborhood and, like, find their friends again. The whole thing was like like a comedy movie. But they still made it to Christie's. They did make it to Christie's because they told their parents they were going snowboarding for the weekend, so they just drove straight up, had this appointment, and, like, they tried to, like, dress them like little flashy suits and stuff like that and be like, my representative. And, like, they tried to, like, pretend they are super important and representing, like, the estate of their beloved dead uncle. And Christie's is just like these weird kids for sure stole some stuff and called the police. You wrote about the Harry Winston in Paris where they, I guess, the thieves somehow stayed overnight in a stairwell. They were able to get into a stairwell and not get caught and and stayed overnight. Is that possible to do? Like, if I go to a jewelry store, I could just hang out in the stairwell, and they'll lock up? I mean, it is it is possible, but, you you would probably have to do what they did, which was bribe 1 of the security guards. And so the security guard was able to let them in, and then they just sat there basically until the morning because Harry Winston also had a compartmentalized defense and depth, procedure to where, like, the the store managers, like, the opening team didn't have the keys. So they had to like, they could they had a security guard open the door for them so they didn't have the actual keys to the outside, and then that manager had to go into their office and grab, like, the safe keys and then start unlocking everything. So everybody each person only had one key, so they had to wait for the right person to come, and then they were able to overpower the manager, take the keys, and start, and start the robbery. And then what happened? So for this one, they actually, they ended up, like, spraying down the stairwell to, to cover DNA evidence with the fire extinguisher. Mhmm. But they were able to basically I forget the exact dollar amount, but they sold, 1,000,000 of dollars in diamonds. I think you said a 136,000,000. I I think That might be a different one. It might be the that might be the second one, but because they hit him again, like, pretty shortly after, but they were able to basically, basically, overpower, this manager, open the safe, steal a bunch of different, you know, luxury timepieces, diamonds, and things like that, get everything from, like, the the display cases that were about to be put out because all of that stuff is stored in the safe, and then they they took off. And then, a couple months after that, I think it was it might have been, like, 6 weeks. They came back dressed as women, and knocked on the door, got inside during business hours right before close. And one of the attackers actually, like, reached into his purse and pulled out a hand grenade. Wow. And then was able to get upstairs into the office. And this is another one where they they had to have an inside, like, some sort of inside person because they even knew about the false bottom of the safe where, this particularly large green diamond was being, was being held. And they were able to, to pull that one off as well. And what happened to them? With that one, I'm trying to I'm trying to remember. I believe a couple people did get arrested for that because, I know that one of the thieves said the other thief's name. Like, what Yeah. Farid, I think. Farid. He was like, we gotta go Farid. But the other person just called themselves Voldemort because they they were smart enough to have a a secret identity. And even better if it's, you know, the name you should not say. And Yeah. And so they basically were able to, to identify this individual. I'm trying to remember exactly how. Oh, yeah. They they they had the security guard. Right? They had an inside guy, and the police noticed that this is the one guy who wasn't hurt, when they broke in both times. Exactly. And and that person was the, because they had security guards on random shifts, this was the security guard working both times. So that, they they figured out pretty quickly could not be a coincidence. Now it it must be easier to sell diamonds that you steal because unless it's like a big green diamond and called the famous green diamond. Like, other diamonds sorta look like, okay. It's just 30 carats of diamonds. It's cut. You know, unless it's really special, it's not gonna be noticed by Well, there there are some like, that's typically true. It's also way easier to to store huge amounts of money in diamonds. Like, you can fit a $1,000,000,000 in diamonds probably in like, if you're wearing cargo pants easily. Mhmm. But, like, if you're just wearing jeans, you can you know, 1,000,000 of dollars, without anybody even noticing. But I some of the diamonds, nowadays, like, they're they're starting to protect them by laser etching serial numbers inside the diamond. And so a lot of times what's happening, especially with, like, these larger stones, is they're getting stolen. But then in order to be able to, you know, to move them, they actually have to recut and, like, downsize them. So you might take, you know, a 10 diamond or 10 carat diamond. And in order to make sure that, like, the serial number is gone or that it's not, like, traceable by carat weight or any of the other identifying, factors, like, you know, it might by the time it's done, be a 6 carat diamond. I see. So but still, they're they're they're getting a lot of money from from these things. Although, you know, diamonds are sort of weird because they don't really retain their sale value. They're sort of marked up by the jeweler from the beginning. So you have to if if a $1,000,000 dime might only be worth, like, $50,000, $100,000 wholesale. Exactly. And so, so finding the the right buyers is typically a big, process of that. And I don't know if I should say this or not, but I'm I'm going to. Did you see the Tinder Swindler? I didn't, actually. I wanna see that. I heard it's good. It's it's very good. But one of the identities, because this guy is a con man and, like, one of the identities that he, like, claims to, you know, to be is the son of a Russian, like, jeweler named Lev Leviev. And there is speculation, and I'm trying to say this very definitively so I don't get, don't get killed, because it it tends to happen. But there's a lot of people that suspect that perhaps that jewelry house is involved in a lot of, illegal activities. And, like, because they were also hit by a Pink Panther's heist, and, and then somebody kind of noticed and had like, the secretary fell out of a window. But but there's, like, a lot of rumors that, like, you know, these diamonds are, like, getting stolen. The insurance money is being collected, and then they're being recut because this person moved so many diamonds that, you know, it doesn't notice and, or it doesn't really register because they're like, of course, this guy has, you know, a bunch of diamonds. Yeah. So so it's interesting. So you've researched so many of these heists and robberies and everything. Again, what do you think you would do? It seems like if you had to rob an institution, like a bank, an art gallery, one of these Freeports, that's too difficult because security is their job. Like, their whole job is to secure this wealthy stuff. But it seems like the customers, again, might not be as secure in their homes or whatever, whether it's jewelry or art or something anything of value. So it seems like that would be if you were gonna do a physical robbery as opposed to, like, a cyber heist, which you just also talked about cyber heist as well. But if you're gonna do a physical robbery, it seems like a home robbery is the is the best. Home robberies are probably, are probably the best, just in terms of you'd have to find the right homes and things like that, but museums are also, like, shockingly easy to steal from. Like, well, how how would you steal from a museum? So, like, some some of them, like, if you wanted to steal, like, from the Met, for example, in in New York, those paintings, like, they're not bolted to the wall. So if you're able to, you know, hide in a bathroom or stay after hours or something like that, you'd still have to, you know, have, the getaway things take, like, into consideration. So you might have to have, like, somebody, like, pull up at, like, the right time and stuff like that. But a lot of those, you can just, you know, basically walk up to the art, take it off the wall, and maybe cut, like, a a steel wire because they don't wanna risk damage to the the paintings themselves, like, they're and because they get moved for, like, restorations and things like that sometimes. Like, they're not actually, like, glued to the walls. Or, you know, it made me think, like, near the museums, there are people who are framers, who frame the art for the museums. I would think even better to go to a framer. Absolutely. Any anytime anytime that something is in transit, that is the best time to hit it. So if it's getting framed at this like, the framer's gonna have worse security than the museum is. So if you can get it while it's at the framer or on its way from the framer to the museum, that's that's a good way to do it. If there's, like, a paint like, a restoration shop, those are those are, like, you know, very valuable targets because they could potentially be working on, you know, several high dollar items. And, typically, the restoration shops are, again, not gonna have museum level security. I feel, though, like, the, like, the the smoothest heist these days are cyber. Like, if you could basically convince somebody about your Nigerian airport, for instance, and you're right about that, that's, like, the best way to do something. I've almost been fooled by one of those, like, a very high level, like, 7 figure, 8 figure number. Not to me personally, but, like, to a hedge fund that I knew about. And only at the last minute, I was able to help them avoid getting scammed. Like, somebody claimed to have Twitter shares that he wanted to sell. This was before Twitter went public. So he wanted to sell these Twitter shares at a big discount to where Twitter was gonna eventually go public. It all it all sounds ridiculous in retrospect, but he claimed to be the son of a doctor to one of the Saudi kings or whatever. And he produced paperwork and evidence, and he produced paperwork and evidence that the Twitter shares were his. But then I knew the CFO of Twitter, so the hedge fund asked me to call the CFO, and he had no idea what was going on. So we kinda knew that the scam was happening. Yeah. It's it's crazy how how often stuff like that happens. Like, even just in the past 2 weeks, like, you you really have to be careful with that stuff. There's been so many like, that that almost sounds again like business email compromise, but that's, you know, it's kind of, you're you're a computer, computer science background. So Yeah. You know, one of the first things you do is you map the data flow, and you figure out, okay, these pieces of this program will interact with this, and this is how it gets there. And if you can figure out how to insert yourself into that flow somehow, like, based on, like, the timing and and things like that, it's it's happening a lot because people one thing that's happening is, the hackers are getting much more patient. And so a lot of times, they're sitting on networks sometimes for a year or 2 without being detected, and just kinda figuring out, okay. Like, this person is gonna make this transaction or this event is happening in the news, and they just really, at this point, have to wait for the right time. Yeah. Wow. It's it's very interesting. I mean, have you had people contact you either because they wanted your advice on making a heist or they wanna make a movie and they want you as a consultant? I've I've been reached out for for a couple projects like that. Luckily, it has been more of, like, the the consulting than it has been, like, you know, people asking me to commit crimes. But but there's there's definitely no shortage of that. And there's also, like, I've helped a couple businesses, that were, like, clearly about to get scammed by by somebody, like like friends of, like friends of family that were talking about. Like, oh, this is weird. I'm like, oh, you need to stop right now because if you hit that button, like, you're you're out, like, 1,000 of dollars. Yeah. It's scary how much of that is going on. Like, apparently, I don't know. There's some, like, ridiculous number of emails that come out of let's say, you know, Nigeria, they have a specific name for these scams, so I'll just use Nigeria. It's like a 409 or 419 scam because that's the, code code in the law. And it's these emails like, oh, I'm the son of a Nigerian prince who died, but now I need some money to unlock 20,000,000, which I'll share with you. But, they send out, like, millions of emails and per one hit successful hit. Well, I mean, it's really it really is just a numbers game because these they don't have to be sophisticated. Like, it's better when they are, like, but it's it's a volume game. Like, even, like, the old, like, the old, emails that you would get for, like, like, off market, like, Viagra or Seattle that you were getting, like, you know, thousands of, like, phishing and, like, spam emails. Like, somebody is clicking on those. Like, somebody doesn't realize that this, like, strange looking email that they didn't sign up for is a scam. They just, you know, care about getting this medication for, you know, $20 cheaper, or whatever the case is. And only one person has to do it. You know, you get a couple $100, but these people if you can get 1 tenth of 1 percent to do it, but you're sending out 10,000,000 emails instantaneously, that's, you know, that's what 1,000 emails successes. So let's say you make a $100 on each one, that's $10,000,000. Yeah. And it doesn't and you don't even have to, like, try that hard. So so let me see. I have a bunch of I have a bunch of these heist bookmarked. Oh, there was the Super Bowl ring one, but that was done by the same people that did one of the another one. I forget which one they Yeah. They did a a bank heist in Ohio where they started all the money on fire. Oh, yeah. That's right. But they still got away with $3,000,000 cash. They did. Crazy, though, because that was, like, mostly coins, that they were able to get away with, which is, like, I don't even know what you do with $3,000,000 of coins. I don't think I'd want it. What do you do with a Super Bowl ring? Again, there's the question. Like, who do you sell a Super Bowl ring to? Well, for that, I mean, there's a there's a few things with that. Like, you could most likely, those are gonna get smelted down, because, you know, if that's pure gold and, like, you know, each diamond I think I think for those ones, like, they had, like, you know, 45 diamonds in them, or, like, different precious stones. Like, you can you can scrap all of that and, like, make it easier to move. You're not gonna be able to sell it as a Super Bowl ring, but you can sell it, you know, as the materials for the Super Bowl rings. Gosh. That seems like a a a hard way to make a, you know, a little bit of gold. Because how much gold is there? Yeah. I mean, for for something like that, probably, like, maybe 2 ounces would be, I guess. That a lot. So it's probably better ways to steal gold. So, you should, like, write a novel with, like, or or a movie script or something with your knowledge of heist. Like, you could probably plan a pretty pretty good one. I would love to do that. That that might actually be the next project I start working on. It's just trying to figure out, like, a fun way to do it. Like, what about all the like, there's a whole bunch of gold underneath the Federal Reserve in New York City. Like, no one's ever tried to to get that, I guess, because it's buried underground. But Yeah. That one is like, that was a really good that's my favorite die hard movie, actually. Oh, I didn't even know it was a die hard movie. Yeah. I still love the gold. But, like, the the vault for the federal reserve, I actually used to work there. You're kidding. No. No. I that was my first information security job. But, like, the vault there is, like, insane. Like, you're it it really would take an act of war to to get in there, because they they they really don't play around with that. And it's like the actual the entire vault rotates. So it's not like you have a vault door. It's like the entire vault rotates within this, within the building to be able to, to be able to access it. Wow. That's crazy. Well, what any other heist, come to mind that are, like, super sophisticated and the guys made off with $1,000,000,000? What's the biggest heist people have escaped with that you know of? Oh, as far as escape that's a good question. Because I feel like I feel like the the keyword there is that you know of because there's definitely people that have done huge, huge heist, but then you never hear about them because they were very smart. Right. There's been a lot of crypto exchanges lately. Like, I I don't know if that counts as that's less of a heist. That's more of, like, fraud, but a lot of these people are starting, cryptocurrency exchanges, and then they're just taking off with all the money. That's definitely happened, like, in the NFT world where people will do a whole NFT drop, raise a whole like, 1,000,000 of dollars, and then literally admit like, they'll say, thanks, everybody. We're out. Yeah. It's it's crazy how much that's changing the world of crime. Because for for years, like, Bernie Madoff was the guy for, like, the largest financial fraud in in history, at least that, like, people knew about. Like Yeah. And he sold, you know, I think, like what was it? Like, $5,000,000,000 or or close to it? That. Yeah. But now, like, this this year, there was a crypto exchange, fraud that's like, they're still figuring out, but it was, like, like, a 20 year old woman who had, like, a failed YouTube rapping career. Yeah. And she is now responsible for the largest financial crime in human history. Yeah. I mean, the the actual heist, was in 2016, but, of course, you know, crypto has gone up a lot since then. So it was originally, like, a $60,000,000 heist, and it's turned into a 4 and a half $1,000,000,000 heist, because but but the problem with not the problem, but the the issue with crypto is that it's actually harder than people think to launder because everybody could see because all transactions are recorded along something called the blockchain, people could see where the money went. And so they had to figure out how to move it without, you know, letting people know who they are. Exactly. And that's that's, because that was always the big thing, and they're like, oh, it's anonymous. So, like, yeah. But anonymous or anonymity and privacy are not the same thing. Right. You know? So it's everybody knows, like, this account like, that's why NFTs are were, like, outed so quickly for being scams because people were able to very quickly figure out, okay. Wallet number a just, you know, purchased this NFT for $20,000,000, and then immediately, wallet number a wired the money back to to this other wallet that keeps doing this. And so they were able to figure out that all these NFT guys were basically inflating the prices by buying the NFTs from themselves. And then they could be like, oh, well, I've got a $20,000,000 NFT, but I I suppose I could let it go for 2,000,000, to try to but the, we the blockchain, they it it keeps the receipts, and people are able to just look and be like, well, I can I could see that you bought it from yourself or that somebody bought it and then gave themselves the money back? Like, even if I can't prove it was you, I know what happened. Yeah. Well, here here's another thing. This is one that that I wasn't I unfortunately was a victim of in it's, like, 2016 or something where this it was a it seemed like a legit project. This guy was creating his own cryptocurrency that was gonna be was called a stable coin. It was gonna be linked to a basket of currencies, so it seemed like a really interesting project. He raised $200,000,000, and then, like, 6 months later, he said, listen. We're not able to make this. Too many regulatory issues, whatever. We're gonna return 99%. We're gonna turn a 190,000,000 to you. We raised 200,000,000,000. We're gonna turn a 190. And so no one complained because they got you know, it's very rare. Something doesn't work out, and you get almost all of your money back. So everybody got, like, 90% of their money back, but then there's always the question. What did they what did they do with that 10,000,000? Like, this that's a lot of money still. But, like, for me, I had only put in, like, a very small amount, so it didn't matter to me. But some some of the bigger investors were were asking the question, and there's no answers. Yeah. The guys just said, like, oh, we hired developers. It's gone. So That's so fun. Like, what's so funny about that like, I'm sorry that happened to you, but it's just amazing to see how people continually reskin old scams. Yeah. Because that scam itself, was pulled off by, Victor Lustig, who's my favorite con man of all time. He pulled that exact same con on Al Capone for fun. Because, like, he he was on the run from Europe because he had sold the Eiffel Tower for scrap metal twice. So I was like, I did the cool off in the, in the US for a little bit and was going around committing a bunch of crimes. And he gets to Chicago, and he's like, I bet I could steal money from Al Capone. So he goes up to him, like, with this, like, business plan, because he was also, like, a prolific counterfeiter. And he was like, I've got this idea. I need a $50,000 investment from you to be able to make this work, but I can give you, like, you know, 200% back in, like, 3 months or whatever the the stakes were. And he just sits on the money for for, like, 2 months. And then he comes back to, and says, you know, I'm so sorry. The the arrangements that I had fell through. I'm not gonna be able to do this, but I wanted to tell you in person. I give you your money back because, you know, I I would never cheat you, Al Capone. And, like, basically, did this whole sob story about, like, how, like, trying to do this, like, financially ruined him, and Al Capone felt so bad for him that he gave him $5,000. Oh my god. And then he just walked out with, like, $5,000 of Al Capone's money just clean. Like and he just did it for the love of the grift. So it's always fun to see, like, how these things because, like, the Nigerian email scams are just a reskin of, like, what used to be called the Spanish prisoner scam, where people would pretend like, oh, well, I'm writing on behalf of the Spanish prisoner prince whatever. He's looking for people, like, kinda like when Napoleon was on Alba trying to gather an army of the faithful. Mhmm. And so these people would, like, try to lend money to get get the Spanish prince's favor, and then same thing happened in Nigeria. And now it's an email, and it just it's the same 5 scams. I wonder if we'll hear about, like, after all this Ukrainian Russia stuff is hopefully over soon. I wonder if we'll hear about scams relating to the Ukrainian charities and so on. I mean, I don't think I don't think their Ukrainian charity is a scam. I'm not saying that. I'm saying people posing here as representing a charity might be a scam. Oh, absolutely. It's it's definitely already happening. It's gonna be crazy to see which ones Yeah. By and large, but that's, yeah, that's a guarantee. Anytime there's a tragedy, people are gonna try to, like that's why, like, I I GoFundMe shouldn't exist. Like like, I I get the I get the the need for it and stuff like that, but so many people use it to try to, you know, to commit some sort of fraud. Yeah. Like like, I in at the beginning of the pandemic, a lot of restaurants and comedy clubs were doing GoFundMe's, hey. Support our employees. But there would just be, like, one employee who was setting it up, and I wonder how many of those, like, it the money actually got distributed to all the employees. Oh, yeah. Probably there were probably a bunch of people that were able to to just cut the money and, like, run with it. Yeah. Well, Pete Stegemeier, s t e g e m e y e r. I'm spelling it out because you could buy your book, heist, an inside look at the world's 100 greatest heights, cons, and capers, from burglaries to bank jobs and everything in between. You could buy it on Amazon or wherever you buy books. This this is a nice cover, actually. You could buy this, nicely printed up also. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I I was really happy with it. I it was such a cool thing to to get to be able to to work on, especially because I didn't plan on it. It just kinda fell on my lap. But, like, sometimes, like, you get opportunities. You just gotta run with it and see what happens. You know so much now. You gotta write, like, a script or an outline or something to use this. I definitely will. Yeah. I I I'll definitely like, I think that's gonna be the next, because I've got a couple ideas. Alright. Well, thanks once again, Pete, for coming on the podcast. And anytime you wanna come on and discuss current heists or anything like that, just let me know, and you're you're always a welcome guest. Awesome. Thank you so much. I really appreciate, being back here. It was a great time. Thank you, Pete. Alright. Thank you.
Comments