The Biggest Heists in History

BIGGEST HEISTS IN HISTORY VALUE AT THE TIME VALUE TODAY VALUED WORTH RECOVERED £2,000 THE GREAT GOLD ROBBERY 1855 £223,428,571 ($321,514,830) O £12,000 THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY PLESS THAN £400,000 1963 £41,341,500 ($59,490,625) £2,600,000 LUFTHANSA HEIST 1978 O UNRECOVERED O £14,830,870 ($21,341,697) £3,422,696 BRINK'S-MAT ROBBERY UNRECOVERED 1983 O £26,000,000 O £79,140,555 ($113,883,654) UNRECOVERED I. STEWART GARDNER MUSEUM THEFT 1990 O £348,088,818 ($500,000,000) ANTWERP DIAMOND HEIST UNRECOVERED 2003 O £63,000,000 O £69,492,461 ($100,000,000) DRUMLANRIG CASTLE ROBBERY O RECOVERED 2003 £50,000,000 ($71,950,250) CRÉDIT LYONNAIS ROBBERY 2010 UNRECOVERED £25,445,062 ($36,615,571) O £21,000,000 CARLTON HOTEL UNRECOVERED HEIST 2013 £89,000,000 ($128,071,445) HATTON GARDEN ROBBERY TWO-THIRDS STILL UNRECOVERED 2015 O £14,000,000 ($19,826,100) O £14,000,000 EXPLORE THESE HEISTS THE GREAT GOLD ROBBERY 1855 On 15th May 1855, three London firms sent boxes VALUE AT THE TIME: containing a total of 91kgs of gold bars to Paris. Once they were weighed on arrival in Paris it was discovered that their weight had changed and on £12,000 VALUE TODAY: + £223,428,571 opening them it was found that the gold had been replaced with lead shot. It transpired that the gold was stolen on-board the train en route to $321,514,830 RECOVERED: £2,000 Folkestone before crossing The Channel. THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY 1963 August 1963 saw a gang of 15 men, led by Bruce Reynolds, ambush a mail train travelling from Glasgow to London. The gang brutally attacked the VALUE AT THE TIME: £2,600,000 VALUE TODAY: £41,341,500 train's driver before making off with £2.6m. Four $59,490,625 of the robbers were never caught and Ronnie Biggs became a household name for his RECOVERED: Less than involvement in the robbery and his subsequent £400,000 escape from prison. LUFTHANSA HEIST 1978 In the knowledge that millions of dollars in VALUE AT THE TIME: untraceable money would have arrived via $6,750,000 Lufthansa, 12 armed men, part of New York's mafia, headed to JFK airport. The group attacked airport workers before accessing the vault and stealing jewellery and millions of dollars, in what was the biggest robbery on American soil at the VALUE TODAY: + £14,830,870 $21,341,697 RECOVERED: O time. The story went on to inspire the plot of the film 'GoodFellas'. BRINK'S-MAT ROBBERY 1983 VALUE AT THE TIME: Thinking that the Brink's-Mat warehouse at £26,000,00O Heathrow Airport would contain £3m in cash, thanks to insider knowledge from a security guard, a group of six robbers got a surprise when they VALUE TODAY: £79,140,555 $13,883,654 found 3 tonnes of gold bullion instead. Let into the warehouse by the guard, the robbers made off RECOVERED: with 6,800 gold bars, diamonds and cash. 70% Unrecovered ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER MUSEUM THEFT 1990 Artwork by Rembrandt, Manet and Degas were VALUE WORTH: among 13 pieces stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston by two thieves dressed $500,000,00O as police officers. The thieves tied up security £348,088,818 guards and made off with a loot worth an estimated $500m. Empty frames still hang in the RECOVERED: O museum in the hope they will one day be returned, and there is a reward on offer for information leading to the recovery of the Napoleonic Finial. O ANTWERP DIAMOND HEIST 2003 The largest diamond heist in history took place in the gem district in Antwerp, Belgium in a plan VALUE AT THE TIME: $100,000,000 VALUE TODAY: executed over 2 and a half years. Leonardo + £69,492,461 Notarbartolo rented an office in The Diamond $100,000,000 Centre and posed as an Italian diamond merchant in order to gain access to the building's vault where RECOVERED: he emptied 123 out of 160 safe deposit boxes. The vault was thought to be impenetrable owing to a lock with 100 million possible combinations. DRUMLANRIG CASTLE ROBBERY 2003 The Madonna of Yarnwinder, a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, was stolen from Drumlanrig VALUE WORTH: Castle in Scotland in August 2003. Stolen in broad + $50,000,000 daylight by two men posing as tourists, the piece £71,950,250 owned by the Duke of Buccleuch was part of what RECOVERED: Recovered is thought to be the UK's most valuable private collection. It was finally recovered from the offices of a law firm in Glasgow in 2007. CRÉDIT LYONNAIS ROBBERY 2010 VALUE AT THE TIME: 2010 saw robbers known as 'The Termites' tunnel £21,000,000 underground to reach a branch of Crédit Lyonnais VALUE TODAY: near The Louvre in Paris. The robbers tied up a security guard before using pickaxes and flame throwers to break through a wall and gain access to 200 vaults, where they got their hands on £21m in cash and jewellery. £25,445,062 $36,615,571 RECOVERED: O CARLTON HOTEL HEIST 2013 An armed man, thought to be a member of the VALUE WORTH: Pink Panthers, entered the Carlton Hotel in Cannes and within 30 seconds left with a case full of $89,000,000 expensive Chopard jewellery. Firing shots, which £128,071,445 later turned out to be blanks, the thief made off RECOVERED: 0 with the jewels belonging to Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev, which were set to go on display in the luxury hotel. HATTON GARDEN ROBBERY 2015 VALUE AT THE TIME: Britain's biggest burglary took place in 2015 £14,000,000 when burglars broke into a vault in London's VALUE TODAY: Hatton Garden and stole over £14m worth of £14,000,000 jewels, gold and cash. The gang drilled through a $19,826,100 wall and into the vault but left no trace of themselves; however, they were eventually RECOVERED: Two-Thirds Still Unrecovered caught when moving £4m worth of stolen goods. Only one gang member remains unaccounted for, along with £10m of the loot. There are many factors that go into the valuation of art, such as market demand, the condition of the piece, liquidity and the artist. Current values calculated using the Retail Price Index (RPI) for all values in £, as provided by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Value in $ was calculated using the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as determined by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED). Sources: BullionVault k. theguardian.com, bbc.co.uk, ibtimes.co.uk metro.co.uk, gardnermuseum.org, telegraph.co.uk, fxtop.com www.BullionVault.com Prices correct as of Feb. '16'