Heist Club

Todd and Jesse have a quick chat with the winner of the Heist Club Cash Grab! 

On a Monday morning in Nice, France, customers at a bank grow agitated as they wait to make their deposits. The short line grows into a small crowd. The vault door is stuck. And as the hours tick by, the door won't budge. Not even the manufacturer can get it open. In the end, frustrated employees take a jackhammer to the wall and make a hole big enough to peek through. Instead of neatly sealed deposit boxes, the employees find scattered papers, muddy tools, and an inscription on the wall that reads: "sans armes, ni haine, ni violence."

On this week's Heist Club, we return to Harvey's Casino. We left off on an explosive moment. The FBI will use a strategically placed C4 charge to try and short out the circuit of the bomb and stop its detonation, but it does not go as planned. 

It's late August in Lake Tahoe in 1980, and crowds of tourists flood the casinos that mark the border between Nevada and California. One such casino is Harvey's Casino and Resort Hotel, the stateline's oldest gambling establishment. And just as the sun peaks out over the horizon a white van pulls up to the casino's delivery port. Then, two men in matching white jump suits unload a massive item hidden under a sheet. They wheel it past security, into the elevator, and place it outside the second floor offices. Before leaving, they drop a note titled STERN WARNING TO THE MANAGEMENT AND BOMB SQUAD. The casino has 24 hours to deliver $3 million or else 1000 pounds of dynamite will flatten the building.

On the night of August 14th, 1775, two dozen men sneak through the streets of St. George's in Bermuda, right under the British governor's nose. Only guided by moonlight, they trek to the top of a hill and face a stone building. Carefully and quietly, they chisel their way through the roof and send a man inside. What waits for him is over 3,000 pounds of gunpowder. They carry the barrels out to sea onto waiting ships. Their destination: Philadelphia. This is the heist that paved the way to victory in the Revolutionary War.

It's Memorial Day 2025 and employees at Dr. Conkey's Candy and Coffee in Simi Valley, California open the shop for the holiday. They are immediately met with disarray. There is paint splashed over the cameras, entire shelves are toppled over, and the safe is open. Strangely, there is also a hole in the wall leading to the business next door, 5 Star Jewelry and Watch Repair. The jewelry store owners rush over, fearing the worst, and sure enough, when they open the safe, customers' jewelry, gold bars, and all their savings, $3.5 million total, are gone.

It's the Wednesday after Easter weekend 1976 in Melbourne, Australia, and a good chunk of the city spent the weekend at the racetrack. Bookies handled swarms of people placing bets and left with a record breaking payload by the end of the melee. Now counting their winnings at the Victoria Club, they hear a bang, and six men wielding World War 2 era machine guns swarm the bookies and take their entire cash haul of $15 million AUD, making it the largest armed robbery in Australia's history.

Shortly after 1 AM on February 22, 2006, an employee at the Bank of England's cash depot in Kent sees his boss on the exterior cameras asking to be let in. Strange, because he clocked out at 5:30 the evening before and wasn't expected until the morning. But, there's a police officer with him so it must be important. He buzzes them in and the second the door opens, the policeman draws his weapon. Over the next hour, seven armed men capture all fourteen employees and make them watch as they drain the vault. When they're finished, they drive off with 53 million pounds. It's the largest bank heist in the UK's history.

It's a spring morning in a Texas swamp where an elusive alligator snapping turtle hunts for his meal. He spots some meat floating right in front of his face and chomps down. Instead of a delicious meal he feels the sharp sting of a hook; and now there are hands on his shell. He wriggles and thrashes against his attackers as they hoist him into a johnboat and manhandle him into a mesh bag. He's taken to shore and tossed into the bed of a truck with another turtle. Hours later, he's dumped into a pond and comes face to face with more of his kind. They're fenced in and far from home. All he can do is wait for dinner, and he's on the menu.

It's a beautiful Sunday morning in Oslo as visitors enter the Munch Museum, home to the acclaimed artist's paintings. But shortly after 11 AM two armed men crash through the doors and order everyone to the ground. They run around the gallery until they reach their destination: The Scream. After one, two, three tugs, they rip the iconic painting from the wall. On their way out, they rip down a second painting, Madonna, then run to a car idling outside. The police arrive less than a minute later but it doesn't matter, the thieves just made away with Edvard Munch's most iconic paintings, valued at $120 million.

It's a beautiful morning off the coast of West Africa on June 4, 1944. There isn't a cloud in the sky nor harsh ocean waves. The crew of the USS Guandalcanal, led by Captain David Gallery, sails north to refuel after their failure of a Nazi submarine hunt. But ten minutes later, there's a ping on the sonar. It's a sub just 800 meters away and 60 feet below the surface. Captain Gallery knows this is his moment to make history, to do something the United States hasn't accomplished since the 19th century: steal an enemy ship.

It's Saturday night in Fortaleza, Brazil, and as usual the popular tourist destination is bustling with night life. That energy extends beneath the surface where a group of men crawl through a tunnel of their own making. Their destination? The vault underneath Brazil's Central Bank. In conveyor belt fashion, they shuffle box after box down the line and into their safe house. At the end of the night, they've managed to steal $70 million worth of Brazilian reais (ray-eyes), nearly double of what they planned. But as they say, more money, more problems, as the gang falls victim to a different kind of heist from an unlikely perpetrator.

On a February morning in 2017, LA based Star Wars collector Zach Tann gets the text that he's been dreaming of for the past 4 years: his contact has the ultra rare, and very expensive, Rocket Fett toy. Meanwhile in Texas, another collector walks the floor of his warehouse museum when he notices something is missing. His Rocket-Firing Boba Fett exhibit is missing a crucial piece: the $20,000 action figure itself.

On November 6, 2000, London's Millennium Dome opens for the day. A meager crowd walks through the gates alongside an even smaller security staff. As the visitors ponder the exhibitions, they hear a crash outside, and a loud rumbling that gets closer…and closer. Then, an excavator crashes through the side wall, heading straight towards the De Beers diamond exhibit. Tourists and employees dive out of the way as the excavator screeches to a halt. Its occupants rush out, tossing smoke bombs into the crowd. They run into the vault armed only with a nail gun and a sledgehammer. The target? A one of a kind $270 million diamond.

In October 2018, in the dead of night, a mini-van drives along the California coast on the famous Route 101. When it pulls over to a cliff's edge, the van's passengers get out. But they don't take photos or enjoy the view. No, what they seek sits on the side of the jagged mountain. With their backpacks and ropes secured, they rappel over the edge. Minutes later, they climb back up, now with full backpacks along with even more bags filled to the brim. After they drive off, all that remains is a small trail of dirt. They are now in possession of $600,000 worth of a teeny cliff dwelling plant known as the bluff lettuce.

On a February evening in 1785 Paris, an intermediary for Queen Marie Antoinette enters a famous jewelry shop to secure a diamond necklace for the royal: the most expensive in history. She has been sent on strict instructions to keep the transaction secret, lest the king find out. The intermediary leaves as quick as she came, with a promise that the queen will start sending payments come summertime. When she puts the necklace in her bag, it's the last the jewelers ever see of it, and payment never comes. This is the affair of the queen's stolen necklace.

Just outside of Montreal, a vast industrial warehouse holds thousands of barrels of Canada's most valuable export: maple syrup. Each barrel weighs 1500 pounds and is worth nearly 20x more than crude oil. A single surveyor is making his routine inspection — climbing up on and around the barrels to make sure everything is up to snuff, when one barrel falls to the ground. Empty. It would not be the only one. A gang of sticky-fingered thieves managed to run away with $20 million of maple syrup.

In the days leading up to Christmas in 1990, the affluent town of Winnetka, Illinois suffers from a string of home invasion style robberies. Investigators believe that the break-ins are connected as they follow a similar M.O: the back or basement doors are forced open, the homes are ransacked, and the faucets are always left running. With more families going out of town for the holidays, police are on high alert to catch the criminals in the act. Until an unexpected hero comes along and saves the day.

Welcome to part 2 of the Goodfellas heist. Last week on Heist Club, we dove into the world of the New York mafia in the 1970s and met Jimmy Burke, a powerful mob associate with a penchant for thievery, and his Robert's Lounge Gang. The gang is now moments away from robbing the Lufthansa vault at JFK airport.

A little after 3 in the morning at JFK airport, the night crew for Lufthansa Airlines goes for their meal break. After they sit down, masked gunmen storm in, demanding everyone get down. A few minutes later more employees are brought in, except for one, who's taken to the cargo terminal to open the safe. When he returns, the armed assailants warn them not to call the police until 15 minutes after they leave. When time is up, they check the vault to see the damage. The $8 million cash haul is all gone. They just took part in the largest cash robbery in American history, and it all went down because an airport worker got in too deep on his gambling debts.

On an October night in Beverly Hills, two teenagers walk the hiking trails that connect the affluent neighborhoods. They hop a fence, and head to the end of a mansion-lined street, to a house with a pink Bentley parked out front. The duo walks up the driveway and right through the front door, almost like they live there. An hour later, they leave with luxury bags stuffed with clothes, cash, and a whole lot of new bling. It's their first of many home raids. Welcome to the case of The Bling Ring.

In the early morning hours at a McDonald's, the opening staff unlock the doors and prepare the fast food joint for the morning rush. However, as they count cash at the register, a masked gunman bursts through the bathroom door. The employees shoot their hands up, terrified of what he might do next. Instead of deranged shouting and gunfire, he politely asks them to grab their coats and head into the freezer. Once the freezer door shuts, he empties the register and flees in under a minute. Mickey D's just got hit by The Roofman.

On a Monday morning in Milan, employees of Italian jewelry house, Damiani, prepare the showroom for VIP guests, when suddenly, men identifying themselves as the Italian Financial Police burst into the room, already holding the caterer hostage. They demand the manager take them to the vault room for their investigation. While everyone else is tied up, the manager opens the inventory vault and the men take everything inside. When they flee, they don't use the front door, instead they scurry into the basement. It's a real life Italian Job with $20 million of jewelry as the mark.  

On a September evening in 2019, a party rages on in Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill. Partygoers celebrate the arrival of an acclaimed, and strange, art piece. Each guest gets personal quality time with the work. But alas, the party must end. A couple hours later, two cars rip across the courtyard. 4 men leap out, armed with sledgehammers, crowbars, and wrenches. They smash a window and break the art into pieces, prying it apart. Shortly after they flee, the police arrive, only to be met with tire tracks, a flooded palace, and a hole where an 18-karat gold toilet worth $6M should be.

On an October evening in 1997, a vault supervisor at the Loomis Fargo Armored Truck Company sends his trainee home early after an exhausting first day. After the trainee leaves, the supervisor walks the building, alone. He goes into his manager's office and takes two security tapes, then, he backs a truck up to the vault entrance. For over an hour he loads bricks upon bricks of cash, 2,700 pounds of it, onto the truck. When the suspension sags, he closes the door and drives off with $17.3 million. An hourly wage worker just committed one of the biggest cash robberies in US history.

The 2000 Summer Paralympic Games in Sydney showcase the ultimate story of triumph. The  Spanish basketball team, led by men with intellectual disabilities absolutely dominates the competition…When they win the gold medal, they become national heroes, securing millions of dollars for their organization (and a few thousand in prize money). Pictures of the winning team explode across Spanish media, and some eye those winning smiles suspiciously. What happens when your gold medal-winning Paralympics team actually isn't disabled…

On a Monday morning in Nice, France, customers at a bank grow agitated as they wait to make their deposits. The short line grows into a small crowd. The vault door is stuck. And as the hours tick by, the door won't budge. Not even the manufacturer can get it open. In the end, frustrated employees take a jackhammer to the wall and make a hole big enough to peek through. Instead of neatly sealed deposit boxes, the employees find scattered papers, muddy tools, and an inscription on the wall that reads: "sans armes, ni haine, ni violence."

On the night of October 26, 1970, crowds swarm the streets of Atlanta, Georgia in anticipation. Muhammad Ali is officially back after a three year ban from boxing. While most of the city hits the bars and clubs, a select few travel to the west side for a highly exclusive after-party. They arrive at a house, ready for a days-long celebration full of booze, drugs, and gambling. Instead, they are met with masked men holding shotguns. Over the next several hours, every arriving party guest is stripped of everything they have and shoved in the basement. It's the biggest heist in Atlanta history.

On a rainy summer night in 1899, a railroad engineer powers a locomotive carrying passengers, mail, and other wares through the Wyoming prairie. Through the darkness, he spots two lanterns signaling an emergency stop. He breaks just in time. Instead of helpful railworkers, two masked men reveal pistols and announce that he is being robbed. Even more men board the train and after two hours of chaos and explosions, the bandits escape with $30,000. He just experienced a hit from Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch Gang.

On a November evening in 1955 in Argentina, an embalmer works on his most important project: the first lady of the nation. After nearly two years of operating in secret, he hopes the rival party will stay ignorant of his magnum opus. But that night, 20 soldiers burst through the door and drag the body into the night. They have just taken his Evita.

It's nearly 6 AM on Christmas Day in London in 1950. A young man runs into the famed Westminster Abbey, looking a bit frantic and disheveled. He drops to his hands and knees feeling around for something in the darkness. Miraculously, he accidentally kicks the small object, his car keys. He sprints out of the abbey and returns just minutes later. He grabs the ends of a cloth wrapped around a large object and drags it across the chapel floor, and into the snowy morning.

On Monday, January 30, 2017, just after 9 PM, a blue hatchback rolls up to a London warehouse. Two men slip out. They carry almost nothing — just rope, some sharp tools, and nerves of steel. They slice through the fence. There's a 40-foot wall and no ladder. They climb a drainpipe. On the roof, they expertly slice the skylight, and rappel down into the dark. All that await them are crates and silence. And $3.5 million worth of centuries old, extremely rare, and very expensive, – not jewels, not art, but books.

It's October 29,1964 and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City is closed for the night. In the darkness of night, the city lights stream through the window, gently illuminating exhibits, including… The JP Morgan Hall of Gems and Minerals. Then, a foot pokes through an open window. Two men slide down a rope and tiptoe through the room. They cut into the glass casings protecting the jewels with the ease of seasoned veterans, scooping up 24 priceless gems. The two thieves sneak back out the window and abscond into the night.

On a fall evening in 1866, three men hop on a steam train just as it leaves the depot. But they're not your average passengers – and they're not here for a ride. Their destination? The express delivery car. They open the door, Colt 45s in hand. The stunned guard follows their orders. The thieves grab the loot and leap off the locomotive with $10,000 in gold. Welcome to America's first train robbery – by its first outlaw gang.

In the dead of night in a little Minnesota town, a car parks in front of a small house, a relic of the early 20th century. A shadowy figure, armed with a sledgehammer, charges the house, smashing the glass door. Less than a minute later, he emerges, carrying a secret package which occasionally glitters under the moonlight. The car speeds off with a job well done. The following morning, a horrified woman scrambles into the house to investigate the broken glass. She is immediately faced with an empty pillar and a lone red sequin. The Ruby Slippers have been stolen.

It's Easter Weekend in London's dazzling jewelry quarter. Merchants close their shops for the Holiday and the streets are empty. Except for one…After midnight, a lone security guard approaches the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Company. He's responding to a text from the damage alarm. He checks the front door. Locked. Nothing out of the ordinary, so he goes about his merry way. But just beneath the surface, a massive hydraulic drill slices through concrete walls, manned by London's most seasoned criminals. They've come for the vault, and they're not leaving empty handed.

Two weeks ago, Heist Club covered the shocking smash-and-grab style heist of the Louvre. Since it happened just a few days before recording, we only had information on how the heist went down and some of the security issues that allowed it to happen. But today, on a new bonus episode, we are going over new information that has emerged. It's a sequel, folks!

On a Sunday evening in Paris, France, reality TV star Kim Kardashian prepares for a quiet night in at her hotel, while her sister Kourtney is out dancing. At around 3 a.m., she hears her door open. She calls out, assuming her sister has returned. Instead, she's met with gun-toting men, who are holding the hotel's concierge hostage. Kim is next. After several minutes filled with language barriers and terror, the men depart, leaving Kim tied up in the bathroom. Six million dollars worth of her jewelry, including a gift from her late father, are gone.  

On a July afternoon in Los Angeles, an employee walks the floor of The Mystic Museum, an iconic spot for horror fans. He walks the floor, greets customers and takes photos for them. He patrols the front of house, near one of the most popular items in the museum. A statue of The Crypt Keeper from HBO's Tales from the Crypt. A little kid tries grabbing the 2 foot statue, but the employee stops him. Crisis averted, he heads to the back of the store to grab something. When he returns, the Crypt Keeper is gone! We've got a stolen piece of Hollywood memorabilia, my darlings!

On the morning of Sunday, October 19, 2025, literally days ago, eight pieces of the French crown jewels, worth approximately $102 million (€88 million), were stolen from the Louvre museum in Paris. And this wasn't done under the cover of night; it happened just thirty minutes after the museum opened. On this special bonus episode of Heist Club, Todd and Jesse lay out what we know so far, their reactions to what was stolen, and any theories already percolating…

On a cool, spring night in London, the centuries-old Christ Church Picture Gallery sits in total and eerie quiet. No guards, just moonlight gleaming over the masterpieces. But then… A skylight shatters… A ladder drops in. Multiple figures descend into the darkness, and within minutes, they pluck 3 paintings from their frames like they have done this one hundred times before. They ascend the ladder with their new souvenirs and vanish into the night. Police answer the alarm within the hour, but it's no use. $12 million dollars worth of art – gone without a trace.

It's July 28, 2018 at the San Antonio Aquarium. With school out for the summer, the aquarium is bustling with families. It's a seemingly normal day, until an employee spies something fishy: two men exiting a restricted area, pushing a baby stroller that's leaking water! Suddenly, alarms are blaring – the water is contaminated with bleach! Employees rush to solve the problem and everything seems fine… except one beloved aquatic resident named Miss Helen… is gone!

On the sweltering afternoon of August 22, 1972, three sharply dressed men entered a Chase Manhattan Bank branch in Brooklyn. They hand the teller a note plagiarized from the movie they watched earlier that day, and reveal their shotguns. What unfolds is an insane 14 hour standoff that captures the attention of all New York City. No this isn't a recap of the 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon, it's the real life story of John Wojtowicz's labor of love. But, hold on. If you've already seen the movie, don't go away, because our protagonist claims that the film tells only 30% of the story…  

It's early morning in Stockholm, Sweden. The overnight crew at the G4S money depot works at full speed. With just two days until payday, the cash depot is nearly bursting at the seams with $150 million. Between the hustle and bustle, a bang rings out. Then another, and another. Then…CRASH. Three men armed with guns and explosives suddenly rain down from the ceiling, the beats of a helicopter's blades resonating through a new hole in the glass roof.  The depot was being robbed… from above.  

It's the first day of the festival of the holidays in Walt Disney World's EPCOT Park. The food demonstration space is packed with guests all enjoying the festivities, when a project coordinator walks to the back of the room and through an inconspicuous door. He makes his way through a place frozen in time. He wanders further back to a theater, where a loveable animatronic would greet him. But in its place is mangled wires and an ocean of hydraulic fluid. Buzzy is gone.

Inside the Louvre in Paris, it was a sweltering summer day and an overweight guard had eaten too much cassoulet at lunch. He was lethargic, drooping. When he left that evening, Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece The Mona Lisa was hanging on the wall. When the museum opened back up two days later, all that remained "were four iron hooks and a rectangular shape several shades deeper than the surrounding area." The world's most famous painting had been stolen.

In the early hours of Saturday, September 13, 1997 a group of men adorned in ski masks and firearms accessed the Dunbar Armored Inc. depot. They had studied its floor plans, wore matching headsets, and most importantly, held a key to the whole place. They were about to pull off what was one of the most lucrative armed robberies in American history, running away with $18.9 million…and they almost got away with it, if it hadn't been for a careless transaction.

Welcome to Heist Club! We're here to uncover the details behind some of the most audacious and ridiculous robberies of all time. How they pulled it off. How they got caught. And the mysteries that remain. Bank heists, art heists, diamond heists – and other capers you won't believe – with plenty of movie references along the way. Welcome to the Club!