when committing a robbery every Split Second Counts thieves can be incredibly sophisticated and sometimes pull off million dollar robberies within the blink of an eye taking a Whistle Stop tour of famous heists around the globe here are some of the fastest thefts in history Dubai our first stop is in Dubai in a Brazen Heist that took them only 170 seconds what you'll find with most robberies on the list is that the fastest high-profile thefts involve jewelry to rob a bank there are various barriers and security measures put in place to stop someone from accessing their cash with jewelry stores you simply need to go into the store smash the glass take the expensive Jewels inside and run for the hills in 2007 Shoppers at wafi mall in Dubai witnessed something from a Hollywood movie and the chain of events could only be fully understood when looking back on the CCTV cameras one car drives through the glass windows of the mall while another vehicle follows the cars move inside this mall towards a jewelry store one car stops and a man with a gun comes out and checks the surroundings the other car then barges into the door of a graft jewelry store carrying a gun and a hammer the man smashes all of the glass casings and helps himself to some highly expensive jewelry he takes 3. 4 million dollars worth of jewels and then speeds off the gang had come and gone within the space of 170 seconds it was revealed later that the cars they used were stolen too the gun he was carrying turned out to be fake and was used as a way to scare people off and make sure nobody tried to make themselves a hero the thieves drove down zatabil Road where they burned down the two brand new Audi cars they had just stolen in order to destroy any evidence this Heist along with others on this list is believed to be perpetrated by a gang of jewelry thieves known as the Pink Panthers named after the Pink Panther comedy and crime movie series while they are incredibly effective jewelry thieves they are much more bloody and ruthless than those portrayed in the movies let's just say there's nothing to be laughed at when these guys are at work when they orchestrated their heist in Dubai the thieves tried to flee the country luckily Dubai Police captured two suspects before they could make their way across the border as well as the two stolen Audis the group had rented a modest Nissan Sunny for their getaway and the emirati police found the jewelry in this car it was until 2014 that a third suspect was found he was arrested by the Spanish authorities and then handed over to the UAE in 2015 and to rub further salt in their wounds their Heist car is now on display at the Dubai Police Museum to reflect the police's ingenious work in cracking the case but despite the Speedy cars raids and getaways this is the slowest theft on our list here's where things get a bit faster London our next Heist takes us to Merry Old England and funnily enough to another Graf diamond store on new Bond Street at 4 40 PM two men dressed in suits walked in posing as customers while they did not wear any masks this is not actually what they look like before the robbery they told makeup artists that they were making a music video and needed their appearance completely altered the makeup artists recalled that one told the other my own mother wouldn't recognize me now to which the other replied that's got to be a good thing hasn't it once inside they pulled out handguns and ordered the staff to get down on the floor then they forced the shop assistant Petra Anar to open the display cabinet it took them two minutes to collect 65 million dollars worth of jewelry these are some of the 43 Jewels taken the hall included diamond earrings necklaces and rings with a total value of around 40 million pounds however the thieves cannot simply sell these pieces as they are experts think they're so recognizable that they would have to be broken up which would dramatically reduce their value the gunman were well aware that police could be waiting for them even at this early stage so they brought out petraerna as a hostage while they waited for their getaway driver to arrive interestingly they also fired a gunshot to clear the Street in Britain Police do not all carry guns and only a particular section of them are allowed to use Firearms if an ordinary police officer was walking around they would simply not be allowed to respond and instead he or she would have to wait for the specialist gun Force to arrive this sequence of events points towards an incredibly capable set of criminals however their methods of Transport getting to and from the scene of the crime suggests otherwise according to Good Morning America The Heist was so Brazen police say the men arrived at the store in a London taxi and made an incredible getaway changing cars three times over a distance measuring less than half a mile they crashed once handed a bag of jewels to an accomplice on a motorcycle and gave police the slit despite being right in the center of London they traveled from getaway car to getaway car and this helped keep the police off their scent However the fact that they were constantly moving from one vehicle to the other led to one of them losing their phone in one of the cars this was a crucial mistake and led to them being caught by the old Bill two men appeared in court today charged with carrying out Britain's biggest ever jewelry robbery they're accused of conspiring to Rob Graff Jewelers on new Bond Street a third man has been charged in connection with the incident however none of the jewelry has been recovered from this Heist and it's unlikely that the criminals will ever divulge this information Tacoma our next Heist takes us to Tacoma Washington in what was one of the fastest bank robberies of all time at one point the criminal I'm about to discuss was an American hero Luke Elliott's summer served time in the U. S army but in a strange twist of fate he ended up using his military training to hold up a bank summer grew up in British Columbia Canada but holds dual citizenship with Canada and the U.
S he joined the U. S army when he was just 17 in 2003 the very year that America led its invasion of Iraq a year later summer spent time in Baghdad and in 2005 he spent time in Afghanistan when returning to America he recruited people to join his training camp on August 7 2006 four men charged into a Tacoma branch of Bank of America carrying weapons it was organized to every Last Detail two of the men were holding handguns and were responsible for getting hold of the money the other two carried AK-47s and regarding the bank from outside they all wore body armor too and carried plenty of ammunition with them summer was one of the men with a handgun leading the charge a prosecutor of the case said if the police arrived Luke summer planned to go to war the robbers were armed for combat summer continued shouting orders at the tellers to hand over the money while one of the men guarding the entrance shouted out how much time had elapsed summer reordered the tellers to give them dollar twenty dollar fifty and dollar 100 bills and told them not to give any money with serial number or die packs that would be traceable his assistant collected the money and when it hit the two minute Mark the team's timekeeper shouted let's go and they fled the scene they exited the bank with 54 000 11 taking them two minutes and 21 seconds the gang Used military Precision in this robbery but it was one fatal flaw that led them to being Court in three days time when they took off in their getaway vehicle a bystander took down their license plate number and handed it over to the police the bandits forgot to get rid of this license plate and this was traced back to the car of one of the gunmen while the thieves I've spoken about earlier remained extremely tight-lipped when caught by the police this guy was a lot more Cooperative he spilled the beans on everything that happened leaving Summer and the rest of the team in hot water too the bystander who foiled this plan may have prevented more than just one robbery according to CTV News summer then 20 years old planned to use the proceeds of the robbery to start a criminal gang in BC that would rival the Hell's Angels summer was sentenced to prison but it is still not the end of this story in 2008 he tried to hire a hitman to kill the attorney who got him convicted and specifically requested to make it look like murder not an accident thankfully The Hitman he hired was an FBI informant which slapped another 20 years onto his sentence for good measure Hong Kong our next robbery takes us across to the Far East in Hong Kong where three million dollars worth of jewelry was taken in 90 seconds in the popular simchatsui shopping district a high-end store named VIP watch and jewelry was the unfortunate Target of Ruthless thieves in July 2018 three masked men confidently charged inside at 10 45 am the glass was smashed and many luxury watches were taken and placed into a bag they took 34 swiss-made luxury watches and 39 American-made bracelets with a total estimated value of 23. 5 million Hong Kong dollars which is equivalent to 3 million US Dollars no guns were seen at the scene of the crime the culprits were simply armed with a knife and a retractable baton sadly a male employee was injured badly by the Baton and had to be taken to hospital after the robbery he was speaking on his mobile phone when the robbers came in and may have said something to alert the other person on the phone that he was in danger A source told the South China Morning Post it appeared the employee was beaten because the gang thought he tried to make a phone call customers and other staff were threatened with a knife but whether the police were tipped off or not this might not have made much of a difference the thieves came and went in the space of 90 seconds as quick as a flash the robbers fled the scene onto the nearby Lock Road where their getaway vehicle awaited superintendent Wong Chi said from our preliminary investigations this getaway car is believed to have been stolen in U.
N long District in March the fact that this car was stolen months before the heist tells you just how much planning and preparation went into this one and a half minute job another vehicle was also found on fire and is believed to be linked to the case the police believe that the bandits handed over the jewelry to someone else while switching getaway cars and afterward they made their way into mainland China two of the men are believed to be Chinese and could speak fluent Cantonese the other robber was of South Asian descent arrests were made weeks after the heist all three men were believed to be caught by police and a girlfriend of one of the men also turned herself in for her involvement too however the stolen goods have not been recovered Paris our next robbery happened in Paris the city of love the Pink Panthers are very active in this city and some even allege that they were involved in the high-profile robbery of Kim Kardashian instead of robbing a jewelry store sometimes it is easier to Simply mug an individual carrying expensive belongings in 2014 thieves decided to put this to the test and rob a Saudi Prince on a quiet Sunday evening at around 5 PM Prince Abdul Aziz binfard left the Four Seasons George V one of the most expensive hotels in all of Paris a premier room at this place will cost you nearly 2 200 a night having checked out the Saudi Prince was on his way to take his private plane at Le Bourget airport but would be interrupted along the way as a royal family member he did not travel alone and traveled in a convoy alongside security guards and AIDS the lead car was a Mercedes van which had some of his AIDS inside however this level of security did not seem to be enough eight masked gunmen driving BMWs swooped in and hijacked the Mercedes van without firing any shots they made off with a briefcase this Saudi Prince had a briefcase stuffed with 250 000 Euros in cash which is about 335 000 as well as cash they also took luxury watches and secret documents deniforia a spokesman for the prosecutor's office in Paris told news outlets the assailants blocked a car with two vehicles and asked the occupiers to get out of the car then they took the car and drove away it took them a few dozen seconds to do that so although there is no exact time stamp on this Heist the thieves did manage to snatch over dollar 300K in the space of seconds there are many suspicious aspects of this crime firstly how did they know that the Saudi Prince was carrying a suitcase full of cash and secondly how did they manage to know the exact route that he would be taking from his hotel to the airport Faria said it was led by criminals who seemed to know that there was money to steal and eventually knew in which car they would find it when we hear that somebody has been robbed of their possession our first instinct is to feel sympathetic toward them however the French public were not exactly shedding tears for this Saudi prince who found himself short of 200 150 000 the prince had just finished a two-month vacation in Paris and was known for leading a lush and lavish lifestyle an article in Le Monde contained comments such as the prince lost his day's pocket change and another person wrote three little minutes of production from their oil wells tax included nonetheless the French authorities took this incredibly seriously and a year later nine men were arrested in connection with the heist the convicts may have been linked with the Pink Panthers and the fact that the theft was done so quickly and professionally certainly points to this New Jersey in New Jersey we have not only one of the fastest robberies ever committed but one of the biggest teams involved too virani Jewelers a jewelry store in New Jersey found itself suddenly swarmed by a total of eight gunmen one of the thieves appears to point a gun at a man near the entrance while another took out a hammer and start smashing the glass the robbery happened at 7 45 PM which was minutes before the store was about to close the thinking behind this may have been that there would be very few customers in the store at this point and the workers may have also been caught off guard having spent the whole day at work however this happened in June 2022 so it was still broad daylight at that hour in just one minute eight of the thieves run in smashed the glass and stashed jewelry in their bags it's clear that these people knew what they were doing and did not hang around for long they took what's believed to be one million dollars worth of jewelry this is Little India it is known as a major jewelry market people come here from well beyond New Jersey but tonight many in this neighborhood are shaken as police hunt that group of suspects Little India specializes in Indian jewelry and is a popular shopping district for the South Asian community and not just New Jersey but most of the East Coast according to Fox News the region attracts South Asian customers from Maine to Maryland there are at least 10 to 15 other jewelry stores in the area so it's a mystery why they chose this store and not the others Local woman Miss bar chaudry witnessed the crime and said how comfortable and confident they were they came in like they owned the store they're like all right everybody down breaking stuff filling up their bags walking away like they had no worries in the World thankfully the only damage caused was to the property at the store no serious injuries reported Brittany some of those business owners tell me tonight they plan to get together and meet with the mayor come Thursday Brittany to talk about safety this robbery happened over a year ago and there have been no further updates on who the culprits are and where the one million dollars of jewelry has gone too it is not understood which gang or operation they were involved with but this seemed like a very professional job Tokyo the next robbery occurred in the city of Tokyo a place which was at one stage home to the contest of ondom which is one of the most expensive necklaces in the world the jewelry piece is composed of 116 diamonds including a centerpiece 125 carat diamond and is believed to be worth 31 million dollars but since 2004 nobody knows where this thing is on March 5th 2004 the Tokyo jewelry boutique Le Supra diamon Couture de Maki had some unexpected visitors according to police reports the robbery involved Two Men and two women the men were expected to carry out the heist while the women were on the lookout daughter visited the boutique many times and posed as an eager customer he was even shown the comptest de Von dome by one of the staff who believed that they could have their biggest ever sale coming soon at the store racific returned another day at 11 46 am except this time he was accompanied by his friend Alexander radulovic radulovich had a pen and paper and looked to be writing something down but he suddenly immobilized the clock with pepper spray meanwhile russovich broke the glass containing the contest of ondom and snatched it for himself then both men ran out of the store and fled on motorcycles the whole thing lasted less than 40 seconds all four of them stayed at a hotel in Tokyo for a night before fleeing the country under fake Croatian and Czech passports the next day they boarded a plane for Paris and were thousands of miles away from the scene of the crime the Japanese put all of their resources into finding the culprits to the extent that they had 100 investigators working on it two years later two Serbian men were jailed in connection with the robbery however they refused to let the police know where the necklace is hidden or who they were working for rasovich even testified that it was an inside job and it was used to collect one hundred thousand dollars worth of insurance money something the authorities have refused to believe one of the most surprising aspects of the crime is one of the women involved since the heist Dorothy fasola has been living in Scotland and working as a fish Trader in Aberdeen she was known as a Fiat driving Seafood exporter who drove a hard bargain on the other side of the world she is believed to be the Mastermind of one of the greatest robberies to ever take place in Japan she was seen looking through Jewelery shops in Tokyo days before the heist and a Serbian prosecutor said Serbian members of the gang were in charge of the dirty jobs but the real person behind the whole operation was fasola she was very good at covering her tracks it was only thanks to security cameras that Japanese police have been able to trace her and to figure out the identity of the mysterious lady fasola was extradited to Italy for a different robbery but released in 2011. ultimately the necklace has never been seen since and it's unlikely that it is still out there while these thieves were in Tokyo they used their hotel cell phone to make calls to Sri Lanka and people suspected that the necklace was sold through the black market by now it's more than likely that the precious diamonds on this necklace were re-cut and resold Brooklyn at a high-end jewelry store in Brooklyn two million dollars worth of jewelry was taken in 38 seconds at 5 PM Bree Mast gunman raided facets jewelry in Park Slope Brooklyn they threatened to shoot a worker while smashing the cases and looting the place of its expensive jewelry according to the store owner Irina sulay the guy reaches into his pocket and pulls out a hammer I didn't even understand how a hammer could fit in there and he says and this is how you use a hammer he smashed three of our main displays each of the three men had their own specific job one man worked with the hammer while another had a bag filled with jewelry the third person meanwhile operated as a lookout sulay says the whole thing lasted 38 seconds they took two and a half full cases of diamond engagement rings newer pieces we've designed in-house and pieces we've collected Art Deco and Edwardian rings but obviously it was less about the jewels they were taking and more about the danger she and her staff found themselves in honestly it's very scary I couldn't even talk yesterday I was hyperventilating crying sobbing and shaking of course they had put plenty of preparation into the heist they knew exactly what cases to take from they only took the big ticket items the guy holding the door yelled what are you doing don't move I'm going to shoot and that's when I was like okay you know we're not moving we're not doing anything we're just quiet we didn't none of us said a word the situation touches upon something high-end Jewelers face on almost a daily basis for a lot of these stores you cannot simply walk in and be buzzed in by the staff one of the men was buzzed in while the other hid behind she did not want to deny him access to the store and let him straight in a lot of Jewelers will have to literally judge someone by their appearance and decide to not let them into their store sulay said I always like to give people the benefit of the doubt it's difficult you try not to racially profile anyone and not be judgmental or discriminatory since then sulai has been nervous about opening the door up for anybody I'm so frightened I'm not even opening the door to my loyal clients sulai said I even recognize who they are and I won't let them in the store said that they will be hiring a security guard and increasing its security measures as a result of this robbery this happened in January 2023 and nobody has been charged yet so presumably police are still actively looking for the culprits can can in the south of France is world renowned for its annual film festival and in 2013 the Carlton Hotel experienced something straight out of a Hollywood film script as this news report explains it was a case of Life imitating art and how about this a Brazen daylight multi-million dollar Jewel theft in the very Hotel on the French Riviera that was a setting for a movie about a Brazen jewel thief played by Carrie Grant it was all too real this time it was a special evening for the hotel the Glamorous Carlton Hotel on the French Riviera is a favorite haunt of the Rich and fabulously famous which makes it a good place to exhibit diamonds and turns out not a bad place to steal them either the exhibition was organized by The levieve Diamond House owned by Israel billionaire Lev levieve and while the staff were loading the necklaces the thief pulled off a speedy snatch and grab he walked in with a gun and a scarf covering his face and the staff simply had no other option but to hand it over he did this all in the space of 27 seconds the Carlton hotel is located across a beautiful and busy seafront Promenade all the thief had to do then was simply blend in with the massive crowd outside John O'Connor a former head of the British police force was almost full of Praise about the criminal when speaking to CBS That's a classic way of getting away with it blend into the crowd it's a brilliant piece of of utterly simplistic easy robbery initially the Carlton thought that the thief took 40 million euro worth of jewels which is equivalent to about 43 million however they realized later on that it was 100 million euro worth of jewels that they had taken or 109 million dollars one French police officer told the guardian thieves see can as Rich pickings a full and Urgent operation is underway to catch the culprit and recover these Jewels another the police officer told the niece matin newspaper The Raid took place in broad daylight at a time when hundreds of tourists were enjoying the sunshine it could not have been more daring the thief took advantage of the crowds and the fact it was Sunday and the atmosphere was relaxed as you can imagine the thief is suspected to be a member of the Pink Panthers and the heist has all the characteristics of their trademark snatch and grab robberies some even believe that it could be connected to thieves from the gang who escaped a Swiss jail that Thursday on July 25th Milan paparik was freed after fellow gang members rammed a gate and overcame security with AK-47s Papa Rick is the third Pink Panther to break out of a Swiss jail in 2013 10 days after the robbery loss adjusters offered 1.
