[Music] one man masterminds the largest gold mining scam in history surely one of the biggest frauds in the history of the world probably the biggest mining fraud of all time he outwitted scientists analysts and the world's leading investors there was always some science backing up this fraud he turned a penny stock into a billion dooll scam and made himself Millions find out how next on master your [Music] [Music] [Music] minds on December 13th 1993 a lone prospector entered the darkest jungles of Borneo and covered the biggest gold strike of the 20th century these series of
jungle Hills in Indonesia um which all had been formed by a volcano were lying on top of a pool of gold the prospector staked a claim on behalf of a small mining company named Bria he ordered Rock samples drilled and sent for testing there wasn't interesting core results and it seemed like this could be one of those Junior plays that made people a lot of money in independent Auditors assessed the size of the gold deposit as astronomical and they started to realize that they had what they thought was an elephant deposit a great big puddle
of gold Bria stock took off like a rocket the prospector used the money to expand his operation he cleared hundreds of Acres of jungle and brought in sophisticated excavation Machinery the analysts on Bay Street and Wall Street got caught up in the excitement and every time they published more details about this gold find in Indonesia the market capitalization of the company the size of the company would jump this company went from a dollar or $2 to $286 this was the largest gold deposit in the world back in Indonesia the prospector kept uncovering more and more
gold gold was trading at $350 US an ounce if you multiply it out it's about $70 billion US fueled by Green everyone from boardroom Executives to middle class suburbanites wanted in on the action everybody wanted to be The Suitor to uh walk down the aisle with Brix even the corrupt Indonesian Government tried to muscle in but what no one knew was there was no gold not 1 ounce the lone prospector cashed in his company stock options and made off with Millions leaving investors devastated people who have basically put a lot of their life savings into
Brix lose everything and I know of several individuals who committed suicide the prospector had engineered an unparalleled Gold Rush outsmarting scientists analysts and investors his name was Michael the Guzman the question is how did he do it Michael De Guzman has convinced the world to invest in a gold mine that isn't there turning a penny stock into a billion dooll Venture and lining his pockets with Millions Michael dezman was a a Filipino um geologist who worked in Indonesia for years the Guzman struggles for recognition in an industry dominated by large American mining companies Mike De
Guzman knew he was smart he had fabulous marks he had an engineering degree but he never got a great job he never got a crack at a great job it's very difficult for the Filipinos even with uh extremely good engineering training to get senior jobs with the big mining companies while exploring the jungles of Borneo dezman devises a plan to make himself Rich unable to get the support he needs to find a gold mine he decides to invent one Michael De Gusman was going to get the wealth that he could never aspire to otherwise dezman
reasons that the most convincing site for the world's largest gold gold mine is on the Indonesian island of Borneo in the area around Indonesia is an area which is quite unusually rich in gold gold mines are associated with um volcanic activity quite a bit so areas where you get volcanoes to people upon gold mines dezman concocts a geological theory to capitalize on what the experts already believe and the theory essentially was where there are extinct volcanoes you're going to kind of plug out uh minerals like gold that are fairly close to the surface now dezman
must find someone with credibility to sell his idea to the world he targets geologist John felderhoff John fellerhoff is the very sort of person you would imagine that would be crazy enough to go through the jungles of calam monan or Borneo uh wearing hip waiters and looking for gold he had actually a well established reputation having discovered a gold mine in Indonesia dezman convinces felderhoff to find a foreign investor who's willing to take risks and not ask questions felderhoff recommends a businessman from western Canada David Walsh was this promoter he'd been bankrupt he'd been sort
of living out of the trunk of his car he was the kind of guy who's always talking up a story Walsh has flown to Indonesia where he's whined and dined in the finest hotel in Jakarta Walsh was at a point where he was looking for some promising properties and he spent basically his last few bucks to take a trip to Indonesia with nothing more than a few rocks maps and some questionable data De Guzman sells Walsh on investing 80 grand on a property in Borneo that he's never even seen it's called buang the thing that
made the Brix fraud credible in everybody's eyes was that one of the largest gold mines in the world is in the Indonesian Islands about 70 M away from what became Busan in exchange for their work exploring busang dezman demands stock options for himself and felderhoff now dezman sets out to turn this penny stock company into a corporation worth [Music] billions he starts by hiring a young Filipino staff over which she has total control the person really in charge on site and buang was Michael dezman De Gusman orders his team to drill core samples once extracted
the core sample is split in two typically half is stored on site the other half is then crushed and sent to a lab to be tested determining how much gold is present but because dezman knows the property has no gold he employs an age-old mining trick called salting salting refers to adding gold to the ore usually what would happen is you'd have a gold mine and you go there and you take gold nuggets sprinkle it around the way you'd sprinkle salt around dezman orders the crushed rock moved to a locked shed where he's sure to
have absolute privacy inside he divid is an ingenious method of salting the samples with gold filed from his wedding ring adding it to the ground up rock as far as I know that's not been done before that was quite a that was a novel twist the challenge to Michael is then taking 40 lbs of rock and figuring out exactly how many gold flakes should go in there in other words there's 3 ounces of gold per ton of rock so he's got to do a fair amount of division and he's got to carefully weigh is gold
if he'd grabbed a teaspoonful and chucked it in the gold gray would have been phenomenal and people would have gone uh and it would have attracted attention de Guzman's calculations are perfect the lab results suggest high levels of Gold without raising suspicion dezman has his frontman John felderhoff call David Walsh at his home in western Canada and tell him the good news the lab result results are the equivalent of a hot tip the market came to really look forward to these results you know there'd be a big excitement Walsh would say on Tuesday we should
have you know core results for you Tuesday would come sure enough there'd be 10 or 12 new holes as each consecutive lab result is posted it appears that more and more gold is being found in buang investors rush to buy Brix shares listed on the Alberta Stock Exchange in Canada [Music] there's so much drilling at busang that dezman needs a larger supply of gold in order to keep salting the thousands of samples there's a lot of local Indonesian natives who make their living or at least a part of their living by panning for gold in
the Rivers Michael befriended this fellow and started buying gold off him so over a period of about 2 years Michael bought about $61,000 with the gold off this guy meanwhile investors anxious to get in on the deal send over an independent auditor to review all the Guzman's records the auditor demands to see de Guzman's core samples but dezman hasn't saved half the samples they did split their core all right but uh they only kept uh 10 cm out of every meter that's very unusual to prevent the auditor from becoming suspicious Deo man is ready with
an explanation he cites a phenomenon called the Nugget effect in which the gold is distributed unevenly dezman insists he must Crush all of the sample in order to get an accurate reading the key was crushing up all the core nobody could check by having crushed up all the core basically they destroyed the evidence but when the auditor takes a closer look at the samples he's suspicious about the river gold purchased by Guzman the gold you get from panning in a river looks quite different from the gold that you find at the bottom of a gold
mine River Gold gets round and around the edges the flakes of gold are are shaped by the forces of the water and the weather dezman uses his theory of volcanic pools to explain why this kind of gold is precisely what you would expect at buang within hours the Brix website announces the successful audit and the stock Rises dramatically you could watch this stock move it would go from $20 to $30 in the space of 3 weeks building on his success with the auditor De Guzman now moves to drive the stock price even higher they looked
at their maps and they said okay well if there's gold here maybe there'll be gold over here as well and that's when they got into boozang too dezman finds enough surface gold to convince David Walsh to finance drilling for what he claims is a second massive gold deposit once again the Guzman has felderhoff fire off a message to David Walsh we've got a monster by the tail Walsh pounces on it he applies for Brix to be listed on the NASDAQ and the Toronto Stock Exchange Wall Street and investors elsewhere and analysts elsewhere we're totally ons
side we're totally enthusiastic we're totally uh hypnotized by the rising stock price by the rising claims of Brix now dezman makes his boldest claim based on drilling results from buang 2 he declares that Brix has the largest gold deposit in the world the investors just looked at the rising stock price and said this must be real having built Brix into a company worth $6 billion and with its stock price at nearly $300 a share it's time for dezman to start cashing in he and his team sell enough shares to be rewarded with over $100 million
when felderhoff and when Walsh and when dezman started selling a part of their Holdings but not all of it people just figured well that's just guys who've had a tough run all their lives and they're just taking out some insurance dezman is now worth millions but what he doesn't know is the Indonesian government is about to make a move that threatens to reveal his [Music] scam Michael De Guzman has pulled off the biggest fraud in mining history he's fooled the world's leading investors turned a penny stock into a billion dooll Venture and lined his pockets
with Millions but he's now facing a real crisis the beginning of the end for Bri uh was problem in Indonesia the Indonesian government which is hideously corrupt decides to challenge brix's claim to this fabulous deposit in August of 1996 the Indonesian government revokes brix's exploration permit and opens the property to other mining companies the government itself was going to get very much involved in the ownership of the deposit and they were going to invite who they wanted to see to develop the deposit so what you saw unfold in rather ugly fashion between um the summer
of 1996 and the spring of 1997 was this um fight amongst major companies for a piece of the action Michael the Guzman knows his drilling records will soon come under scrutiny from the other mining companies a move that's sure to reveal the Brix fraud desperate he destroys all his records at busang claiming it was an accidental fire what went up and smoke that day would ultimately help cover the trail of the conspirators that did this fraud the Indonesian government forces Brix to accept a new mining partner Freeport McMoRan from now on Bria owns only 45%
of busang when news gets out Brix stock drops $1 billion but dezman counters he releases new drilling results that dramatically increase the estimated gold reserves underground they had previously said that they had 57 million reserves and they increased that to slightly over 70 million reserves given that the ownership that they had in percentage went down to make the value be the same they had to increase the reserves bre x stock rises again shareholders are thrilled in the spring of 1997 dezman and his team are invited to be guests of honor at brix's annual shareholder meeting
in Toronto Canada Michael dezman made a presentation as part of the Brix annual meeting to talk about what he'd found and to talk about what the different girl results had proven was underneath the ground he was able to stand before shareholders with this fabulously expensive stock a company that's worth5 billion do and said look we did the best deal we could under the circumstances we're all rich isn't this great he wildly applauded considered a hero his um theories of mining even though they were slightly unusual seem to be validated by the results but on the
other side of the world brix's new partner is anxiously drilling for gold only yards away from where De Guzman had drilled and their samples came up empty they weren't finding the gold that Michael dezman had said was there dezman got the phone call we don't seem to find any of the gold you say is there get your story behind back to Indonesia Pronto pal and explain this to us after 3 years and billions of dollars time is running out for the Mastermind behind the world's largest fraud when brix's powerful new partner doesn't find gold at
BO Sayang Michael De Guzman is forced back to Indonesia the next morning he climbs into the back of a helicopter driven by a uh Indonesian Air Force officer takes off over the jungle he's about 400 or 500 ft in the air over some of the deepest rainforest in all of Indonesia and the pilot looked into the back seat and the Guzman was gone the Guzman had jumped out of the helicopter apparently 3 days later the Indonesian Army Army claims to find the Guzman's body it's badly decomposed and partially eaten by animals it's so gruesome the
authorities won't let his family view the remains it was very difficult to believe that um they took two three days I recall to find the body when in fact the pilot did said he did set the GPS recorder so they should have been able to find the spot rumors swirl about de Guzman's death death was it suicide murder or yet another perfectly planned deception if you wanted to disappear anywhere on this planet Indonesia would be one of the easier places to do it that you could for a few hundred purchase a recently deceased body independent
drilling takes place directly beside where dezman took thousands of samples and not a single ounce of gold is found they go and they drill their own core samples and the security they have around that is unmatched they are drilling 2 or 3 feet away from where prexus sets some tons of gold all they find is Rock flake there is no gold there it looks so good it couldn't be real I mean was too good to be real it's an unbelievable Revelation they just can't believe that this fabulous deposit in fact never existed investors around the
world suddenly realize they've been had Walsh is just flabbergast cannot believe that this is happening and it's that point that the Brix team in Toronto realizes that they've got nothing to go on that their that their stock is going to zero because this was a massive fraud shares themselves are only useful as wallpaper David Walsh adamantly denies any knowledge of the fraud he moves to the Bahamas with his wife 2 years later he dies of a massive heart attack John felderhoff continues to live in a gorgeous home right next to the yacht club in the
Cayman Islands where there's no tax and there's also no extradition treaty with Canada for white collar crimes Michael dezman the master mine behind the greatest mining scam of all time is supposedly laid to rest I compare him to Rumple szin he was able to turn a very small amount of gold into a huge amount he spun a story into a huge amount of gold no criminal charges have Arisen uh out of the briak Scandal uh no one has ever spent a day in jail as a result of it the fraud itself has changed the way
that Canadian Regulators look at the mining industry it would be somewhat more difficult to pull off a similar type of scam but it it isn't impossible it's probably still could be done again the adage caveat mtor is indeed true buy or beware in spite of class action lawsuits not one investor has ever been compensated a harsh reality for thousands of ordinary people who invested their life savings in Bri X and were left penniless I actually believe that Michael dezman is alive I don't think that he did fall to that helicopter I believe that he faked
his own death and that he's enjoying the money that he scammed Brix the Press called him Indiana Jones a daring Tomb Raider who looted ancient artifacts from Egypt he obviously recognized that there was a potential to make a huge income from smuggling these Antiquities into the west and selling them his accomplices idolized him as a master of deception the idea behind the smuggling operation is a fantastic very very clever idea it's brilliant he was a top player in a dangerous game I was immensely proud of what I was doing it's a game which requires wit
and skill and very good nerves for 10 years he eluded authorities on two continents and made Millions find out how he did it next on [Music] [Music] [Music] masterminds beneath the Sands of Egypt lie the room remains of 5,000 years of human history in the early '90s there was an upsurge in the smuggling of these ancient artifacts property was being excavated from the ground and then suddenly turning up in the west and being sold for huge profits in an effort to protect their Priceless cultural heritage Egyptian authorities cracked down security was dramatically increased the risks
are considerable Egyptian prisons are not a place that you want to spend a great deal of time in but in London the center of the illegal Antiquities trade British authorities noticed a flood of illicit Goods still coming onto the market various people across the Western World were prepared to pay bigger and bigger money presuming that you have the expertise you can make millions of pounds per year police feared someone had found a way to beat the system he was manipulating the whole system for financial gain he exploits the Antiquity Market but he exploits it brilliantly
then in 1993 a 3,000 year-old sculpture of an ancient Pharaoh a men hotep III came onto the London Market it was an extremely significant piece it was a very rare piece at the height of the Gulf War with security at an all-time high a master Smuggler had found a way to do the impossible if I had been caught at that that time they'd have killed me his most brilliant move was being able to transport it out of Egypt without raising any questions to get the peace out of the country he took the shadowy art of
smuggling to a level law enforcement had never seen before back in England the statue was transformed from Contraband into a legitimate collector's piece and sold for over a million dollar he was a mastermind of smuggling Antiquities from Egypt a lot of the newspapers over here saw me as a sort of Indiana Jones I saw myself as something very old-fashioned and very traditional doing something that the English do well smuggling with calm nerves and moral courage and a sense of fun sense of humor Jonathan tokley Perry was a dashing romantic figure and one of the most
ingenious Smugglers of the 20th century the question is how did he do it Jonathan toley Perry is one of the 20th Century's greatest Antiquity Smugglers eluding massive security to escape from Egypt with a million dooll sculpture but this Mastermind with nerves of Steel didn't start out like Indiana Jones born into a middle class family toley Perry is accepted into prestigious Cambridge University he develops an interest in art and Antiquities and reinvents himself as an upper class gentleman my family wanted me to get on a train and go into the City and make a lot of
money and have a heart attack when I was 50 and I point blank refused he's a complex character he has a almost a heightened sense of Honor he wanted to go into the army but was turned down he then joined the territorial Army sort of weekend soldiers part-timers denied the opportunity to pursue a full-time military career tole Perry returns to his first love the past just touching something ancient was a wonderful feeling you catch a vibration and I knew that that was what I wanted to do after training as an Antiquities restorer he quickly gains
an international reputation I was the highest paid restorer in England probably Europe but I still could not afford to buy any of these wonderful objects I would have the most stunning things on my table that I restored and brought back to life and then I'd have to give them back and I realized that a restorer is just a servant what togi Perry wants is to be his own Master he was restoring objects for dealers who were selling them for thousands or even hundreds of thousands of pounds and I think his head was turned he obviously
recognized that there was a potential to make a huge income from smuggling these Antiquities into the west and selling them Egypt is the place if you have a passion for Antiquities 3,000 years of continuous civilization an enormous number of objects and buildings and the feeling that at any time something wonderful is going to turn up tole Perry travels to Cairo under the guise of a researcher there he makes contact with a local Smuggler he befriended a chat called Ali farg who was the youngest of of a large family all of whom were engaged in uh
smuggling Antiquities out of Egypt Ali farag tells tole Perry about an artifact that has been found at a construction CER site but the Gulf War is Raging and tole Perry must proceed with Extreme Caution the country is under full military alert foreigners were being arrested if they were seen with Egyptians I was actually hiding in the boot of the car because there were roadblocks everywhere went out to the southern suburbs of Cairo a building contractor with connections to the smuggling underworld has Unearthed an ancient artifact tole Perry realizes he's looking at a 3,000-year-old sculpture that
will make him a very rich man if he can keep his cool the Egyptians are the best salesman in the world they are psychologically so brilliant the high stakes game begins he was looking at me and I met his eyes and looked away the last thing I'm going to do is let this one go because I've been waiting for 5 years for this toley Perry is desperate but so is the contractor Jonathan calls his bluff the Egyptians were panicking they were desperate for currency now the master dealmaker drives a very hard bargain $6,000 cash for
a million dooll piece of History I had my first world class piece there wasn't any period of feeling oh the world is wonderful gods's on my side all I realized was oh Christ how am I going to get this [Music] out because being caught with the piece could be fatal he must think fast his most brilliant move and the move that no one else had identified was the actual disguising of the piece and that meant preparing it which was to make the object look as much as possible like a kit bizarre thing the salt that
idiots Buy in the hotel shops all the time to do this I had to take a battered Antiquity and make it look like a modern complete object so I had to build up make up the things which were missing he coats the statue with a gum and applies Gold Leaf he polishes the leaf then Paints the sculpture so it looks like a cheap souvenir he then buys a real souvenir keeps the receipt removes the base and places the sculpture on it having done that the object looked absolutely ghastly but it gave us a good chance
of getting through security was doubl there were armed soldiers everywhere in fact it was just complete bloody man for me to do it and the consequences of getting it wrong would be really really nasty I would have been taken to the desert and not come back at the airport security is everywhere tokle Perry is stopped by the Antiquities police made me open the suitcase and he said what is this I said oh it's the present here's the receipt and I tried to distract him by holding the receipt and then the bit I dread it he
reached into his pocket and he brought out his bloody Keys now Egyptians are very good with keys they get a key and they scratch the surface and I knew that if he scratched on the face he would go straight through to the stone and I'd be buggered and as he went to to scratch I said no no not there underneath much better I had to get him down to the base where I prepared an extra inch of plaster just for him to scratch and he saw the plaster looked at it and waved his hand and
wandered off and thank God I got it right back in England he sails through customs but his work is far from complete first he must remove the elaborate disguise without damaging the sculpture breaking the gilding in plaster is far too risky but his expert knowledge of chemistry pays off before he covered the statue in plaster he coated it with a protective layer of plastic I put it into a bath of acetone and gradually gently everything will float off leaving the Antiquity exactly as I received it in Egypt he then took it to the next stage
where he actually changed the ey line he changed he added part of the beard to it in his own words give it a better line so that the collectors would pay more money for it [Music] but if buyers suspect the piece is stolen they'll alert police so he now forges documents to give the statue a convincing history to make the labels I took some Victorian Pharmacy labels cut out the letters rearranged them had them printed on a very old stock of paper and then practiced my copper plate 20's handwriting with ink which i' chemically faded
and then having cut out the label I aged I soaked it in tea I dried it I wet it I dried it again so I had a label look thoroughly scratched and ancient he glues the label to the back of the sculpture it would appear that the object hadn't come from Egypt at all had come from an old country collection in England tokle Perry is now ready to strike through his network of international Antiquities dealers he sells the sculpture for a million dollar congratulations couldn't believe it it seemed that I'd actually uh achieved what I
wanted in in in in in one hit but this success is just the beginning and tokle Perry's ambition to be the world's greatest Antiquity Smuggler will soon threaten to bring him down Jonathan toley Perry has made a million dollars smuggling the sculpture of Otep III over the next 4 years years he continues to secretly export Egyptian Antiquities and reaps a fortune Jonathan indulged himself with his lifestyle um he had several suits made by his um Devon Taylor he bought an extremely expensive sports car I made millions of pounds which was nice it's nice to be
paid for what you love doing as soon as the money got bigger the objects got bigger and the whole game became more dangerous and more sophisticated he realized that he needed a mule to carry these pieces out Jonathan targets Mark Perry a local handyman jonath walked in and I was sort of all struck by him I think he saw I was gble in the first place he he knew that you know he is a lad a young lad young family very short of money toley Perry offers Mark £500 a week plus all the Adventure he
can handle somebody comes along to me and says you're going over to Egypt you're going to stay in a hotel all expenses paid and I'm going to pay you for it but I had the chance of Adventure I had the chance of money and getting away from the day-to-day realities of life I I I can actually do something tole Perry soon introduces his Protege to Egypt's smuggling underworld we arrived in Cairo and nothing prepared me for what I was about to to feel that day just amazing to see and of course again I was all
struck by it I showed Mark what I was doing he even trained him how to camouflage the objects and then Mark would bring them back to this country and I took him through customs once to show him the techniques and I instructed him very very carefully what to do if there was any problem I did all the Dirty Donkey work it was my life on the line I've carried half a million pound worth of antiquity in a bag through the center of KIRO and not even thought anything of it didn't even realize what I had
all I was wanting to do was get back for a beer in the bar with his mule in place toley Perry now hires a more sophisticated partner to help negotiate with the Egyptians he makes a deal with Andrew may an aristocrat fallen on hard times we had a gentleman's understanding that he would own take the smaller pieces that were no longer of any concern to me and that he would train himself in the market and eventually maybe in a decade's time he would take over from me but Andrew May soon turns out to be a
problem the mistake he made with Andrew May was that having gone to Egypt and seen the huge amounts of money that could be made Andrew May began buying pieces and bringing them out as well as bringing out Jonathan's pieces he was too greedy and too hungry and too frightened and he tried putting it very simply to rip me off the big difference between Jonathan and Andrew was that Jonathan had worked with Antiquities for many many years as a restorer Jonathan had done his homework Andrew in the space of months tried to pull off the same
act and lacked the knowledge in Cairo May buys a collection of rare ancient Egyptian documents known as Papyrus but fearing the artifacts are fake he takes them to the British museum to be authenticated it was one of the most stupid things that you could possibly have done Museum archaeologists quickly realize these are artifacts that they had originally discovered and that had been stolen in Egypt they contact police when we were contacted by the British museum formed an opinion immediately that it was such a dumb thing to have done that this person couldn't possibly be responsible
for the theft and the Looting of this material when we started to research Andrew may we found that he was the owner of a Mana house in Devon one of his tenants was Jonathan toley Perry somebody who had a large collection of Egyptian material and was working as a restorer the police are ready to move against tole Perry but when they arrive at his home he isn't there they have to break in we found Jonathan tole Perry's workshop and it was in the workshop that we found a vast amount of Antiquities so it was fortuitous
or perhaps unfortuitous for Jonathan that he turned up while we were in his house when I got to my front door I could see that my kitchen window had been smashed and there was a gray Stout man there and I said to him have I been burgled what's happening and he said we are the police and I said oh thank God you're here and he said well actually we did that and we're here to arrest you and I said why couldn't you bloody knock like anybody else Jonathan reacted in a typical Jonathan way he put
on his Superior air that he was better than anyone El who might be there he huffed and puffed uh he had a a rational explanation for everything that he was doing Jonathan tokley Perry is arrested on the charge of handling stolen property his 10-year multi-million dollar smuggling operation has finally caught up with him but putting him in prison will prove extremely difficult Jonathan tokley Perry is arrested but cannot be charged with smuggling because his crimes were committed in Egypt and to actually prosecute Jonathan in this country was not easy the police are forced to charge
him with the Lesser crime of handling stolen property although he is eventually found guilty authorities are troubled by the difficulty of bringing him to Justice as a result new laws are enacted giving police the power to charge smugglers in their country of residence the case itself has has redrawn the legal lines for the Antiquities Market the Antiquities trade in not just this country not just in the USA but the world but to this day tole Perry believes he did nothing wrong I was immensely proud of what I was doing because having seen what was going
on in Egypt I was aware that if it weren't for people like me a lot of those objects would be destroyed I no doubt that he justified his actions to himself through being the modern day Robin Hood saving Antiquities for the world despite what Jonathan would like to think of himself he is and was a criminal after serving 3 years of a six-year sentence Jonathan toley Perry is released he is currently working again as a restorer and is often consulted by police investigating the illegal Antiquities trade [Music] a lone woman pulls off the biggest home
burglary spree in American history she's this criminal mastermind that became the sort of bulk hero in South Florida stealing over 6 million in jewelry Furs and artwork she's basically shopping through these people's houses she changed her appearance like a chameleon and let the police help us to stop her and I said to myself my God where where is she not hitting how about the Bahamas are they safe how is this woman not getting caught find out how she did it next unmas mins [Music] [Music] [Music] during the early 1980s cocaine Wars caused an unprecedented urban
crime wave in Miami to escape the affluent moved further north to gated and patrolled communities like boka delmare and boa Ron it was people getting out of Miami they were people with money there was a lot of wealth fabulous wealth along the inter [Music] Coastal but in 1984 these well protected communities were hit by a spree of over 500 home burglaries it was not uncommon for us in a 5-day period to investigate anywhere from 10 to 12 burglaries in badel or in the Boer vuon area the frequency and the dollar LW started to mount real
quick the people of boa delmare could not go to work and do their shopping without having to worry that their homes were being burglarized the loss was not only staggering in dollar amount but it was alarming in that it wasn't just the typical jewelry and or say expensive electronic equipment it was just about anything of value all of South Florida was being racked by this one burglar it wasn't your typical run-of-the-mill crook that we were dealing with I mean burglaries went unsolved police discover similar mos in all the crimes the burglaries always occurred during Monday
through Friday the point of entry was always through the front door and that pillow cases were missing from the master bedroom there was no witnesses there was no L Prince the perpetrator was obviously the same person the police were unable to identify the perpetrator because they assumed the crimes could only have been committed by a man this completely blew me off my feet here I'm dealing with a prolific Burger who's a woman and very good at what she does that was what was so cool about it you know she wasn't the person that I imagined
stealing my VCR Judy Omar was The Mastermind behind America's largest home burglary spree stealing over $6 million in Furs jewelry and artwork it was just an exciting feeling I just thought wow this is marvelous Catch Me If You Can the question is how did she do [Music] it Judy Omar is The Mastermind behind the greatest home burglary spree in US history leaving the police helpless to stop her Amar grew up poor on an Arkansas Farm very boring not adventuresome it was a farming community and I really didn't like what I was doing after an unwanted
teenage pregnancy she leaves her child to be raised by her parents and moves to Miami I was told that you know nobody wanted me I wasn't good-look the same thing that most girls get in trouble for in Miami desperate to support herself she accepts an offer from a boyfriend to help him Rob homes so I needed money he asked me to drive him somewhere because no one would be suspicious of a woman you go on the house you look for the jewelry that's it she come back to the car he wasn't really that good at
it he always seemed to mess up everything during a burglary Judy and her accomplice are arrested by the police however due to insufficient evidence all charges are dropped from now on if I'm taking a chance of getting arrested and I'm going alone was better because I didn't have to worry about him messing up something or getting in my way so that's when I started she had a lot of different abilities that made it a Natural Choice so to speak for her she had a plan and a scheme and that's what made her different than your
average burglar Amar now sets out to revolutionize home burglary starting with how she finds her targets the Sunday real estate section was Judy's guide to burglary it's where developers of housing projects try to Tout The amenities they offering in their homes basically they lay out all these floor plans which for a burglar in hindsight it's incredible information she used that to her Advantage she could see whether these homes were being sold for instance with security systems installed she could see if the doors were recessed just from looking at the house diagrams she could plan 30
burglaries in in 30 different branding neighborhoods sitting there with with the Palm Beach Post having determined her Target Amar now creates the perfect persona for herself the wigs were by far in a way the greatest asset she had in trying to disguise herself I had several different ones I had a long straight with bangs one that was done with curls that was frosted I had an afro I had a short one but I would just change Judy knew how to dress when she went out high heels she always wore high heels slacks cuz she did
know that she might have to make some sort of getaway she just looked good and she looked like she belonged no one would give her the second thought because professional business women is a very common occurrence here in in Boke Delmar and in boa Ron very common to see a woman executive or a woman real estate agent dress this way she could go into gated communities and just you know wave at the guard hi how you doing and she' look like she belonged there which is something that that her compatriots couldn't pull up the next
step in amar's plan is to obtain untraceable Transportation the idea is to change the automobiles as often as possible if the police are looking for a red Plymouth you come back in a blue Chevrolet you completely befuddled everyone they're not looking for that car at least once a week she rents a different car and always pays in cash so you give them $300 $500 and you take the car as long as you keep the payments up you don't have a [Music] problem to further ensure her vehicle is untraceable Amar changes the license number to prevent
Witnesses from correctly identifying her car having found her Target and secured Transportation Amar now determines the perfect time to [Music] strike she would look for our deputies and she'd stay back several car lens and just watch them and follow [Music] them and if he went into a particular restaurant she knew that darn well that the deputy was now going to eat that's a good 30 [Music] minutes for AR this is the window of opportunity she heads immediately to her Target she has chosen this house because its recessed front door helps conceal her activities because I
would have covering and the people next door really couldn't see anyone standing there she would put that Gucci bag on her arm and strides right up to the door like she belonged there she knew where she was going she'd knock on the door she could think on her feet Someone caught her in the act of something she would say oh I've got the wrong house I'm so sorry I've bothered you she leaves but if there's no one there no one answers the knock no dogs are barking she goes to work and inside of her purse
was her 12-in long screwdriver she knew exactly where to place the screwdriver to get this door open she would insert the blade of the screw screwdriver between the frame of the door and the locking mechanism and jam it jam it as far as as she could possibly get it and begin to bend it and eventually the lock is wide open and she uses the screwdriver to push the lock back now she's got an entry into the house the only problem is she's triggered the alarm system Judy was not afraid of alarms the vast majority of
alarm calls are are false alarms and the police know that and Judy knew that the master bedroom was first at that point she knew she had about 60 seconds before the alarm system would go [Music] off she'd go to the closet get the designer clothes grab a pillowcase off the bed she knew what she was looking for things that would sell [Music] well it was a strand of pearls was a piece of Jade in the middle and it had Sapphires and diamonds around it she's basically shopping through these people's houses there was two pé watches
beautiful antique pieces things that she would like and might keep for herself Amar is in and out in 90 seconds but she's so bold she goes back for more after I got that in the car I had seen the Remington statue on the way out and I went back at and took pit Judy Omar is at the height of her powers stealing A4 million dollar worth of goods in a single burglary the only problem is her past is about to catch up with her America's most prolific home burglar Judy Amar has broken in into hundreds
of houses and scored over $6 million in jewelry Furs and art now they've increased from one reported on Tuesday and one on Wednesday to two or three on Monday four on Tuesday two on Wednesday I mean she was just having a field day she was going wild then in 1985 the police finally get a lucky break and a man came home from work and actually found Judy in his house and she literally ran right past as him got in the car and drove away for the first time the police realized the criminal they're searching for
is a woman one of the other detectives had remembered a woman who years before had been arrested for the same thing in the same area when the police search their database for that period it reveals Judy's name I mean it lit up just like if you hit 777 on a slot machine in Vegas we got Judy's picture put it in a lineup brought it to him and instantly he picked her out said that the woman the police also established the make and model of Judy's car they issue a Statewide bulletin despite her close call Judy
brazenly targets a second home that day one of our deputies had been alerted we were looking for a particular car that Judy was using was a blue Chevrolet he's yelling into the radio that he had found the car and was unoccupied so he took up a position and waited for the troops to get there and there was police drag net for me and she knew that she was about to get cornered Amar escapes out the back then breaks into the house next door where she finds a set of car keys and I pull the wig
off and go because if someone had seen me and gave a description they're giving the wrong one I look nothing like it there's a Mercedes sedan parked in the garage and she's so Brazen she waves to an officer the officer waves back and she got away she just drives right through the police drag naap one of the detectives who she drove by he had no real clue what she looked like that day because she changed her appearance like a chameleon today she would be a redhead tomorrow she's a blonde and on Friday she would be
a brunette this woman was good when we realized that she had given us the slip and I remember the temper tantrum that I had which wasn't pretty uh I was livid it was I was angry at no one but Judy and uh pretty much said to myself okay you just made this personal now this case then came home with me I had a closet in my house and I used it as a little mini office and I would work on this thing at night on my own time and this became an obsession with me scanning
burglary reports from across the state tomazi recognizes Judy's Mo and realizes she's hitting a much larger territory than he suspected she likes to travel the city of Del re Beach is notifying us that they're having burglaries that match Judy's M Mo to the tea city of boaron is the city of Plantation is the City of Sunrise is and then the city of which is on the other side of Florida is telling us that they have cases that match and I said to myself my God where where is she not hitting how about the Bahamas are
they safe I mean you know just how is this woman not getting caught it was a lot of work you had to get up in the mornings just like you were going to a job you had to find an area to burglarize sometimes it was from 8 till 6:00 or 7 at night as Judy's spree continues police Tracer abandoned blue Chevrolet back to a car rental agency near the airport they identified her said yeah she comes in here on a regular basis so now they knew she was wanted they no longer wanted to do business
with her and they said if she comes we're going to call the police tamazi now UPS the AE we found out about her family and Arkansas and did a background on her son at his request the FBI to rains Judy's son we kind of figured if we put pressure on her family that's going to be her Achilles heel so we started talking to her son do you really want to have your mom resisting us and getting herself killed we don't want your mom getting hurt she's the one who's upping the Auntie on this every week
the son refuses to give his mother up when Judy learns the FBI is leaning on her family she's outraged that hit a sore spot with Judy that was her Achilles heel was her son because she became livid with me and she called me from somewhere in Miami and told him to leave my family alone that my family had nothing to do with this and I was not in Arkansas she was furious at me for reaching out for her family but if that's what it takes then that's what it takes he said you need to turn
yourself in I said I can't do that Judy amar's refusal to surrender however is about to threaten both her life and Ron [Music] tamazi 16 months pass in the Amar burglary investigation without the police getting any closer to catching her they didn't know where to find her they were being driven crazy po Ron tamasi he became obsessed with finding Judy to the point where little things that she would do would irritate him to no end and he just get more and more stressed I said I'm living this case I'm eating this case I'm breathing this
case I can't sleep at night because of this [Music] case and I love police detectives but they're the most Macho you know guys in the world they don't want anyone to get away with anything but here's somebody who's clever and smarter and a woman and they can't catch a girl you know there was just something that was ging about that pushed to the point of exhaustion tomazi suffers a heart attack and is forced off duty for weeks he was so obsessed with it I think that was his problem he had his hands full his children
even knew my name the very day that I went back to work I was notified that Judy Amar had been identified as hiding in a motel in Surf Side from an informant in [Music] Miami I think if it had not been for this guy and a drug charge you know trying to get a lenient sentence well he told on him he told her where she was with an army of undercover agents tamazi Stakes out the motel so we had snipers and everybody in place we didn't know what we were going to deal with whether she
was going to quietly submit to us or we would have to shoot it out she came home at about 8:20 8:30 in the morning she comes to her door and the moment she put the key into the motel door to open it everybody came out I remember turning around and I the black guy I think had the chain with his badge around it he's in a squat position with a gun like this she was so completely stunned she said that she looked around there were guns everywhere she just thank God she just surrendered and it
was old the room was filled from top to bottom from wall to wall with statues clothing shoes apparel jewelry you just couldn't imagine just it looked like a little Warehouse or a little store I remember when we sat as close as we are now and I looked into her eyes and she was crying and then she said to me she was glad it was over she actually told me I'm glad it's over now and I told her I same thing I'm glad it's over Judy Amar pleads guilty to multiple charges of burglary and is sentenced
to 10 years in 1990 she is released from prison it was an obsession I would go by a house and you know it was just this haunting feeling and then I decided that I was going to do things right no matter what and I was determined not to burglarize anybody anymore since her release the Bandit Queen has used her unique skills to teach Americans how to make their homes more secure [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah he [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] no [Music] [Music] [Music]
