5 Heists That ALMOST Worked
These thieves got in, got the loot, and almost got away with it, until one tiny mistake gave them away.
Some heists fail in the first five minutes. These ones didn't. They got in, they got the loot, and they almost got away with it.
Almost. Because every single one of them was undone by one tiny mistake.
Here are five of the craziest heists that almost worked, and the tiny thing that ruined each one.
Heist 1: The Mona Lisa
Heist one. The Mona Lisa.
In 1911, a museum worker named Vincenzo Peruggia walked into the Louvre in Paris, wearing the same white smock as the staff.
He lifted the Mona Lisa off the wall, took it out of its frame, hid it under his clothes, and walked out.
Nobody even noticed it was gone until the next day. Then it vanished for two whole years.
Crowds lined up just to stare at the empty wall where it used to hang.
His mistake? In 1913, he tried to sell it to an art dealer in Florence. The dealer called the museum director, and police arrested him that same day.
Heist 2: The Baker Street Tunnel
Heist two. The Baker Street tunnel.
In 1971, a gang in London rented a leather goods shop two doors down from a Lloyds Bank.
Every weekend, they dug a tunnel about forty feet long, right up into the bank's vault.
It worked. They broke into the safe deposit boxes and walked away with millions.
But their lookout was talking to them over walkie-talkies, and a radio hobbyist half a mile away accidentally tuned in and heard the whole thing.
Police checked hundreds of banks that night, but they were looking in the wrong places, and most of the loot was never recovered.
Heist 3: The Antwerp Diamonds
Heist three. The Antwerp diamond heist.
In 2003, thieves broke into one of the most secure vaults in the world, in Antwerp, Belgium, the diamond capital of the world.
They somehow got past the heat sensors, the light sensors, the magnetic locks and a ten-layer security system, and emptied more than a hundred safe deposit boxes.
The haul was worth more than a hundred million dollars. It's still one of the biggest diamond heists in history.
Their mistake? They dumped a bag of trash in the woods by a highway. Inside was evidence, including a half-eaten salami sandwich.
DNA from that sandwich helped police tie the ringleader to the crime. Most of the diamonds were never found.
Heist 4: The Grandpa Gang
Heist four. The grandpa gang.
In 2015, over Easter weekend, a gang broke into a vault in London's jewelry district, Hatton Garden.
They climbed down an elevator shaft, then used a huge industrial drill to bore straight through a vault wall about fifty centimeters thick.
The surprise? Many of them were in their sixties and seventies. The oldest was seventy-six.
They took up to fourteen million pounds in cash, gold and jewels. But security cameras and a huge police investigation caught up with them within about six weeks.
Heist 5: The Billion Dollar Typo
Heist five. The almost billion dollar typo.
In 2016, hackers broke into Bangladesh's central bank and sent fake payment orders worth nearly a billion dollars.
They timed it for a weekend, when the bank was closed and nobody was watching.
About a hundred and one million dollars got through. But one payment was stopped because the hackers spelled foundation wrong.
That typo, and other red flags, helped banks block most of the money. Hundreds of millions of dollars, saved by a spelling mistake.
Still, tens of millions of dollars were never recovered.
The Short Version
So, a dealer's phone call, a radio hobbyist, a salami sandwich, security cameras and a typo.
Even the smartest plans can fall apart because of one tiny detail.
Which heist do you think came closest to working?
