The First Bank Heist in America on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: What has been termed the first documented bank heist in U.S. history, happened when burglars stole $245,000 (1831 values) from the City Bank (now Citibank) on Wall Street happened on this day in 1831.

The amount stolen would come to over $52 million in 2013 currency. Initial reports variously reported the name of the culprits as Edward Smith, Edward Jones, James Honeyman and James Murray. A modern source, drawing on period newspapers, names James Honeyman and William J. Murray.

"The pair had gained entry with a set of duplicate keys carefully made from wax impressions of the door locks by Honeyman's brother in law, a locksmith. They emptied out the vault and some safe deposit boxes and disappeared undetected.

When the theft was discovered the next day, suspicion fell on the employees because there was no sign of forced entry." Source

Murray and Honeyman, who used both "Smith" and "Jones" as aliases, spent $60,000 before they were caught. Murray fled to Philadelphia while Honeyman remained in New York under an alias. Both were captured, convicted, and both sentenced to five years in Sing Sing prison.

While this is posited as the first bank heist in US history, there was actually an earlier one in 1798. Read more here.

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The McKinney Quadruple Murder on This Day in History

This Day in History: The McKinney quadruple murder happened on this day in.

The McKinney quadruple murder, also called the Truett Street massacre, was when four people were gunned down in a house in McKinney, Texas on March 12, 2004. The incident received notable national coverage on the July 22, 2006, episode of America's Most Wanted, leading to the capture of a suspect. 

On March 12, 2004, Eddie Williams, Javier Cortez, and Raul Cortez entered the home of Rosa Barbosa (46), a clerk at a local McKinney check-cashing business. Javier Cortez allegedly had been watching Barbosa and believed she took cash home from the business daily. When the men couldn't find any money in the home, they forced Barbosa to give them the key and alarm code to the check cashing business. One of the men then shot and killed Barbosa.

Before the shooters had left, Barbosa's nephew Mark Barbosa (25) entered the home with friends Matt Self (17) and Austin York (18). The three burglars forced Mark Barbosa, Self, and York into a bedroom and shot them before fleeing the scene. Shortly following the botched robbery, Robert Barbosa - Mark Barbosa's brother and a resident in the house - entered the residence to find the four victims. Self was still alive and was rushed to the hospital. He died the following day.

The killings were also the subject of an episode of the Investigation Discovery channel documentary Nightmare Next Door.  The episode first aired in January 2011.

You can watch that episode here.

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The Largest Cash Robbery in the UK on This Day in History

This day in History: At least six men stage Britain's biggest robbery on this day in 2006, stealing £53m (about $92.5 million or €78 million) from a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent.

At least 36 arrests were made during an extensive police investigation.

Other Securitas depots had been previously targeted in the mid-1990s, when ram-raiders in Liverpool and Manchester had stolen more than £2 million. The Northern Bank robbery in Belfast was previously the biggest cash theft in UK history, when £26.5 million was stolen in 2004. This record was broken by the Tonbridge heist. The largest cash heist in global history took place in March 2003, when approximately US$1 billion was stolen from the Central Bank of Iraq, shortly after the United States began the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

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The Great Brink's Robbery on This Day in History

 

This day in history: The Great Brink's Robbery occurred on this day (January 17) in 1950. The Great Brink's Robbery was an armed robbery of the Brink's building in the North End of Boston, Massachusetts, on January 17, 1950. The $2.775 million ($31.3 million today) theft consisted of $1,218,211.29 in cash and $1,557,183.83 in checks, money orders, and other securities. It was at the time the largest robbery in the history of the United States, and has been called "the crime of the century". The robbery remained unsolved for nearly six years, until estranged group member Joseph O'Keefe testified only days before the statute of limitations would have expired.

Of the eleven people involved in the robbery, eight would receive life sentences after a trial, with two others dying before they could be convicted. Less than $60,000 of the more than $2.7 million stolen would ever be recovered. The robbery received significant press coverage, and was eventually adapted into four movies.

The robbery was first conceived in 1947; however, in 1948, after months of planning, the group learned that Brink's had moved to a new location. While the theft was originally intended to be a burglary, rather than an armed robbery, they could not find a way around the building's burglar alarm. After observing the movements of the guards, they decided that the robbery should take place just after 7 pm, as the vault would be open and fewer guards would be on duty. Over a period of several months, the robbers removed each lock from the building and had a key made for it, before returning the lock. Two vehicles were stolen: a truck, to carry away the loot from the robbery; and a car, which would be used to block any pursuit. 

"No one was hurt in the robbery, and the thieves left virtually no clues, aside from the rope used to tie the employees and one of the chauffeur’s caps. The gang promised to stay out of trouble and not touch the money for six years in order for the statute of limitations to run out. They might have made it, but for the fact that one man, Joseph “Specs” O’Keefe, left his share with another member in order to serve a prison sentence for another burglary. While in jail, O’Keefe wrote bitterly to his cohorts demanding money and hinting he might talk. The group sent a hit man to kill O’Keefe, but he was caught before completing his task. The wounded O’Keefe made a deal with the FBI to testify against his fellow robbers." Source

Eight of the gang's members received maximum sentences of life imprisonment. All were paroled by 1971 except McGinnis, who died in prison. O'Keefe received four years and was released in 1960. Only $58,000 of the $2.7 million was recovered. O'Keefe cooperated with writer Bob Considine on The Men Who Robbed Brink's, a 1961 "as told to" book about the robbery and its aftermath.

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The Sadistic Dubrow Furniture Store Robbery on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Philadelphia’s "Black Mafia" gang committed the brutal robbery of the Dubrow Furniture store on this day in 1971. 

The Black Mafia, also known as the Philadelphia Black Mafia (PBM), Black Muslim Mafia and Muslim Mob, was a Philadelphia-based African-American organized crime syndicate. The organization began as a small criminal collective, known for holding up neighborhood crap games and dealing in the illegal drug business, but at its height of operation in the early 70s until about the early 1980s, it managed to consolidate power and control a large portion of criminal activity in various African-American neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia, the Delaware Valley, and South Jersey, including Atlantic City and Camden. In addition to drug trafficking, burglary, and armed robbery, the Black Mafia was also engaged in traditional organized crime activities such as extortion, racketeering, prostitution, loansharking, number running and other illegal gambling rackets.

On January 4, 1971, eight Black Mafia members robbed DuBrow's on South Street in Philadelphia. They entered the store one by one posing as customers. Once all were inside, they pulled guns on the twenty employees present and forced them to lie on the floor in the back of the store where they bound them with tape and electrical cord. Thirteen employees were beaten while two others were shot. A janitor who walked in on the robbery while doing his job was shot and killed. One employee was doused with gasoline and set on fire. After their vicious treatment of the employees, they looted the offices in the store and set more fires to destroy evidence of the robbery. The eight criminals fled the scene as soon as the fire alarm went off, purposefully trampling on one of the victim's bodies as they left. This crime was so notable that W.E.B. Griffin wrote a novel based on it, The Witness, and Philadelphia Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo was quoted as saying that the DuBrow crime was "the most vicious crime I have ever come across."

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Bank Robber Baby Face Nelson on This Day in History

 

This day in history: Bank robber Baby Face Nelson was killed on this day in 1934. Nelson got his start in the criminal gangs when he was employed to bootleg alcohol throughout the Chicago suburbs. Alcohol was illegal thanks to Prohibition.

At the beginning of Prohibition, the Reverend Billy Sunday stirred audiences with this optimistic prediction:

"The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile and children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent."

That was far from the truth. The golden age of bank robbers like Baby Face Nelson in the 1930's can be linked to Woodrow Wilson, the man who gave us both the Federal Reserve (which led to the great depression) and Prohibition. Organized crime got its first foothold in American life thanks to the lucrative black market in liquor. Overall crime increased by 24 percent during the first two years of Prohibition. "In fact, a study of South Carolina counties that enforced Prohibition versus those who didn’t found a whopping 30 to 60 percent increase in homicides in the counties that enforced the law." ~Brian Miller

"Prohibition did not achieve its goals. Instead, it added to the problems it was intended to solve and supplanted other ways of addressing problems. The only beneficiaries of Prohibition were bootleggers, crime bosses, and the forces of big government. Carroll Wooddy concluded that the 'Eighteenth Amendment . . . contributed substantially to the growth of government and of government costs in this period [1915-32].'" Source

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The Spaghetti House Siege on This Day in History

 

This Day In History: The Spaghetti House siege began on this day in 1975, at the Spaghetti House restaurant in Knightsbridge, London. Franklin Davies, a Nigerian student, led two other gunmen in an attempted armed robbery of the Spaghetti House, where managers of the chain had assembled to pay in the week's takings of approximately £13,000. When the armed robbery did not go as planned, nine Italian staff members were taken hostage, and moved into the basement. Another staff member escaped and raised the alarm, leading to a siege of six days.

The Metropolitan Police Service surrounded the restaurant and cordoned off the area. The gunmen, claiming to represent the Black Liberation Army, a Black Panther splinter group, demanded safe passage and an aircraft out of the country to Jamaica. Due to this being a sensitive issue Sir Robert Mark, the then Commissioner, consulted with the Home Office and refused.

The siege lasted for six days. The demoralized robbers and their captives emerged unharmed. The perpetrators, 28-year-old Nigerian student and ringleader Franklin Davies, 24-year-old West Indian man Wesley Dick and 22-year-old West Indian man Anthony Gordon Munroe were sentenced to 22, 18 and 17 years in prison respectively.

According to W. A. Tupman in Violent Business?: Networking, Terrorism And Organized Crime: "Subsequently, at the trial it was claimed that the BLA did not exist and the accused were simply criminals who wished to rob the restaurant for personal gain. It was frequently said at the time among cannabis users that 'If you want to buy dope North of the river [Thames], you have to deal with the IRA. South of the river it's the Black Liberation Army.' The author heard this said before the Spaghetti House Siege ever happened."

Subsequently a number of works were produced based on the siege, including books, documentaries, and at least one film, Spaghetti House, a 1982 Italian comedy-drama.

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Stockholm Syndrome on This Day in History

 

Front view of the former Kreditbanken building at Norrmalmstorg in 2005

This Day In History: A bank robbery went wrong in Stockholm, Sweden, on this day in 1973, which turned into a hostage crisis. Over the next five days the hostages begin to sympathize with their captors, leading to the term "Stockholm syndrome".

The Norrmalmstorg robbery was a heist that led to 6 days where hostages were kept captive. Famously, the hostages then bonded with their captors and appeared to protect them. The seemingly paradoxical actions of the hostages led to a great deal of academic and public interest in the case, including a 2003 Swedish television film titled Norrmalmstorg, a 2018 Canadian film titled Stockholm and a 2022 Swedish Netflix television series Clark .

"Stockholm Syndrome is a condition in which people develop positive emotions and associations with someone who is keeping them captive....The origin of the term Stockholm Syndrome arose in the aftermath of a well-documented robbery which took place in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1973. Four hostages were kept captive in the bank whilst their captors had a six-day stand-off with the police. After their release, the authorities found that the hostages had developed strong emotional bonds towards their captors, and even refused to separate from them. The hostages reported that their captors treated them kindly and did not harm them. They defended the captors and refused to testify against them in court. After this, criminologist and psychiatrist Nils Bejerot who investigated the event named this phenomena Stockholm Syndrome." Source

The Stockholm Syndrome may also explain why people support government tyranny. "A disturbing aspect of a national collapse is how large portions of the population can undergo a form of Stockholm Syndrome to cope with the social and emotional stress of scarcity and deprivation. Stockholm Syndrome can be both a personal and societal phenomenon shared by a group experiencing the same crisis. The primary concern in both cases is survival. In Greece, Stockholm Syndrome appears regularly in the news to describe their responses as a nation held captive by foreign creditors and corrupt political figures. One scholar explains their compromise with the government in this way: 'When you realize there is no end to the crisis, that you can trust the promises of nobody, you seek sanctuary in that which you know. I know how to live in the crisis.' The seemingly irrational choice to remain in a perpetual state of social suffering, decreased living standards, stresses, and anxieties is the epitome of society with Stockholm Syndrome." Source

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The "Baron of Bank Robbery" on This Day in History

 

Today in History: German-American bank robber Herman Lamm died on this day in 1930. Lamm is widely considered one of the most brilliant and efficient bank robbers to have ever lived, and has been described as "the father of modern bank robbery". By his death in 1930, his techniques had already been widely imitated by other bank robbers across the country including bank robber John Dillinger.

Lamm was a member of the Prussian army and after he was discharged, he decided that a bank heist needed military planning and training. His system (what became known as "The Lamm Technique") involved carefully studying a target bank for many hours before the robbery, developing a detailed floor plan, noting the location of safes, taking meticulous notes and establishing escape routes.

"Lamm assigned each gang member a specific job, along with a specific zone of the bank they were charged with surveying and a strict timetable to complete their stage of the robbery. Among the jobs he assigned to his fellow robbers were the lookout, the getaway driver, the lobby man and the vault man. He also put his men through a series of rehearsals, some of which involved using a full-scale mock-up of the interior of the bank. Lamm stressed the importance of timing during these practice runs, and used stopwatches to ensure the proper results were achieved. He only allowed his gang members to stay in a bank for a specific period of time, regardless of how much money they could steal." Wikipedia

Lamm is also credited with devising the first detailed bank robbery getaway maps. Once he targeted a bank, he mapped the nearby back roads to a tenth of a mile. He meticulously developed getaway plans for each of his robberies. Before every heist, Lamm obtained a nondescript car with a high-powered engine, and often recruited drivers who had been involved in auto racing. He would spend days doing practice runs.

Lamm's gang was considered the most efficient gang of bank robbers of the era. It all came to an end after robbing the Citizens State Bank in Clinton Indiana. However, it took thousands of angry Indiana citizens and 200 police (many newly deputized) to stop him. He shot himself rather than surrender to the mob.

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