There have been a number of YouTube channels, podcasts, and streaming programs dedicated to dumb, ill-conceived, or poorly executed crimes. But what about the opposite?
There have been some well planned crimes throughout history.
A Reddit user asked:
"What are some of the most clever/genius crimes ever committed?"
The Great Train Robbery
"So in my opinion yeah, it has to be the 'Great Train Robbery' in 1963—believe me it was wild."
"A group of guys in the UK stopped a Royal Mail train and managed to steal like £2.6 million (equivalent to tens of millions now)."
"They used insider info, messed with the signals to stop the train, and executed it like a heist movie. Not condoning it, obviously, but it was a pretty insane plan for its time."
~ KaleidoscopeNo1748
"And Ronnie Biggs got away with it for DECADES."
"He escaped prison after 15 months and fled to Australia and then Brazil. The UK didn't have an extradition treaty with Brazil until 1997, so he was able to live openly and he even sang vocal on several records including The Sex Pistols."
"He was finally brought back in 2001 and jailed. Then in 2009 he was released on compassionate grounds, before dying FOUR YEARS later aged 84."
~ given2fly_
Google/Facebook Scam
"The guy who stole $100 million by sending fake invoices to Google and Facebook."
~ wbennin
National Liquor Distributors
"Looking official and just walking out the door with stuff is a very old and very common con.
"I worked at a store that got grifted by a guy with nothing more than a branded polo shirt."
"Walks up to a Manager and says, 'I'm with National Liquor Distributors, and I'm installing a new display. I need a couple of your guys to help load out the old stuff, then I will come back with all the new stuff'."
"Well... He wasn't with NLD, and he never came back."
~ SillyFlyGuy
Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist
"The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist."
"Yeah, they eventually got caught, but the idea was pretty good, and it's f*cking hilarious that the biggest theft in Canada's history was of maple syrup."
~ chalk_in_boots
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Theft
"The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Theft has to be top of the list.
"To this day multiple Rembrandts are still missing with zero indication who took them or where they are."
~ FerretAres
IT Heist
"I used to work in IT in central London—a story went around about a team of guys pulling up to a very large financial institution's offices one night in a couple of brand new matching Transit vans, the occupants getting out, all in matching overalls and hi-vis vests, and explaining to the night watchman that they were there to do some out of hours IT work."
"They then calmly walked into the IT department, disconnected several hundred thousand pounds worth of kit, loaded it into the back of the vans and drove off."
"Between looking completely above board and having some convincing bogus paperwork, apparently the security guy didn't bat an eyelid and it was only the next morning that it came to light."
~ thomas_newton
Parking Scam
"There was a parking attendant who collected the parking fees for the parking lot next to a public zoo. He worked there for decades."
"It was like $5 per car. Probably a pleasant surprise for people used to much higher city parking costs."
"One day he just stopped showing up. After a few days, the zoo called the city and said the parking attendant quit and they needed to hire a new one."
"The city told them that it didn't cost any money to park on that lot."
~ I_might_be_weasel
Prediction Ploy
"This was a common scam—probably dates back to antiquity in some form or another."
"A number of people received a letter in the mail predicting the outcome of a sporting event. Amazingly, the prediction came true."
"Not much later, they received a second letter, predicting the outcome of another sporting event, and it too was correct. Then a third letter, and the same thing."
"Then they received a fourth letter, and it said that for x amount of dollars, the recipient would be told the outcome of another sporting event. Many people sent in the money, but never received the prediction."
"The way the criminals did it was they started with a large number of people, then sent half of them one prediction and half of them another. Whichever group's prediction came true, they sent a second letter. And so on. I always thought that was a pretty clever scam."
~ tereddits
McDonald's Monopoly Scam
"The McDonald's Monopoly scam—the head of security of the marketing company that helped McDonald's administer their famous Monopoly game led a scheme where he stole the winning pieces and with a group of people helped cheat the company out of like $24 million over the course of several years."
"He was responsible for carrying the winning pieces in a sealed package and taking them to packaging centers where he was responsible for applying the winners to soda cups and fry packages that were going to be sent out to McDonald's that had already been randomly selected by a computer."
"Basically, he was accidentally sent a bunch of tamper proof seals that allowed him to swap out the winning pieces that he was responsible for carrying with non-grand prize ones; he'd dodge the auditor by hiding in an airport bathroom and doing the swap there."
"Then he'd do his job as usual, but sent the losing tickets out while he pocketed the winners. He'd then get his friends and family to help find people to 'claim' the winning prize for a promise of splitting the money."
"Eventually the feds got a tip about one of the winners and noticed that there was an unusual cluster of winners of the game in states like Florida and Georgia, where the guy and his family lived—remember, the tickets were supposed to go out to random destinations around the US."
"Several people got arrested."
~ v_rose23
Eiffel Tower Scrap
"Selling the Eiffel Tower as scrap metal was a great con that doesn't get a lot of attention."
~ lMakeshiftl
"The gentleman who perpetrated this con also wrote the 10 Commandments for the Con Man."
"1. Be a patient listener (it is this, not fast talking, that gets a con-man his coups)."
"2. Never look bored."
"3. Wait for the other person to reveal any political opinions, then agree with them."
"4. Let the other person reveal religious views, then have the same ones."
"5. Hint at sex talk, but don’t follow it up unless the other fellow shows a strong interest."
"6. Never discuss illness, unless some special concern is shown."
"7. Never pry into a person’s personal circumstances (they’ll tell you all eventually)."
"8. Never boast. Just let your importance be quietly obvious."
"9. Never be untidy."
"10. Never get drunk."
"Words to live by, con or not."
~ Zwesten
Köpenick Con
"Scene: the town of Köpenick, a suburb of Berlin. The year is 1906.
"An unfamiliar Prussian Guards Captain walked into the army barracks and ordered a small group of enlisted men to come with him. At the Captain's direction, the soldiers arrested the Mayor and City Treasurer on embezzlement charges."
"The captain made arrangements for the local police to 'see to law and order' and prevent outgoing phone calls for one hour, sent the soldiers to escort the arrested officials to a particular Guard headquarters in Berlin for interrogation, and personally took custody of the town's cash box as evidence."
"When the soldiers and their prisoners arrived at headquarters, they were met with surprise and confusion, as the people there had never heard of the Captain or of any cause or orders to arrest the officials. Back in Köpenick, the Captain was nowhere to be found."
"Turns out the Captain was a former shoemaker named Wilhelm Voight, who had a few months previously gotten out of prison on charges of burglary and fraud. In the meantime, he had cobbled together a passable uniform from bits he'd bought at second-hand stores, and the entire operation was an elaborate robbery."
"He got caught a week and a half later because he'd been careless in talking about his plans before the heist."
"A little over a year into his four-year sentence, the Kaiser pardoned him on grounds of 'I'm not even mad, that was amazing'."
~ Gyrgir
Los Angeles Tunnel Robberies
"The 1986 LA tunnel bank robberies."
"2-3 people used ATVs and other equipment to traverse LA's storm drainage system, cut holes into bank vaults, and stole millions of dollars worth of cash and valuables."
"When investigated, cops discovered they were probably very close to cutting their way into another bank vault that would have netted them tens of millions. They've never been caught or identified."
~ foofarraw
Assassination Of Kim Jong Nam
"Pretty horrific, but also bizarrely complex, was the assassination of Kim Jong Nam, the elder brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un."
"The two assassins didn't know they were being trained to kill anybody. They were hired on as talent for a prank-based TV show."
"Their signature 'pranks' were to run up on people in public with hand sanitizer on their hands and wipe it on someone's face. Then they'd go, 'sorry!' and run away giggling. The other gal would run up and spray cologne on the prank target, and similarly run off."
"They were trained after a successful 'prank' to immediately discard all of the supplies, wash their hands and change clothes if I recall correctly, then disappear into the public crowd and regroup elsewhere to film another one."
"Anyway, this went on for some time, just a harmless prank show. Until it wasn't."
"Kim Jong Nam came in through the airport, on his way to take his kids for some very Western vacation time, like I think they were on their way to Disneyland. He was very different from the rest of the dynasty back home."
"He was disinterested in politics and brought shame to his family with an untoward interest in western lifestyles and entertainment. So he was kinda sneaking through, he was trying to keep this trip on the down low."
"Anyway, here come our ersatz pranksters to play their tricks. Only this time, the 'hand sanitizer' and 'cologne' are two parts of a deadly nerve toxin, that once combined on his face, killed him in minutes."
"The two would-be TV stars scattered, washed their hands, disposed of the supplies, just as they always had. They get caught by CCTV, and the whole affair is just crazy."
~ i__hate__stairs
Robber Turned Author
"A guy dressed like a road maintenance worker robs a cash truck outside of a bank."
"BUT prior to this, he put an ad on Craiglist offering work for $28/hour, and anyone interested had to show up at the bank, wearing the same road maintenance attire."
"A dozen guys, all unwitting decoys, were milling about the parking lot as the robber escaped...on an inner tube floating down a nearby river."
~ tequilabourbon
"He only got caught because a homeless guy saw him casing the place a week prior. He almost got off Scott free with $400,000."
"The dude went to jail for 6 years and while in jail, he'd write stories and draw pictures for his daughter."
"When he got out, he published them and is now a children's author and seems like a very decent dude."
~ Ill-Air8146
Nice Bank Heist
"The 1976 bank robbery in Nice, France."
"They tunneled into the vault on the Bastille Day long weekend, stole over 40 million Francs worth of cash, securities and valuables, and spray painted 'sans armes, ni haine, ni violence' ('without weapons, neither hatred, nor violence') on the wall."
"The leader was caught and during his trial he jumped out of the window, landed on a car, got on the back of a waiting motorcycle and disappeared."
~ mrgonzo247
"I think this is the one where they did it over a weekend and brought in catering and had a feast IN THE VAULT."
"Les boules sur ces hommes [the balls on these men]."
~ WalnutSnail
"That's the one. They even brought air mattresses to sleep on and strung lights up in the tunnel."
~ mrgonzo247
What would you add to the list?
