The crooks that performed a daylight raid on the Louvre may have been bold, but their heist is one of the more sane examples in this collection of real crimes. Read on for...
The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist
Maple syrup is (shockingly) a big deal in Canada. The majority of it comes from the "Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers" an almost cartel-like group that regulates the price and distribution of the fluid. If the powers-that-be decide there is too much on the market, the surplus syrup is stored in barrel-filled warehouses.
The Pink Pearl Pilferer
The theft occurred when the pearls were sent to France for a viewing and possible sale. When the potential buyer declined and returned the pearls via registered courier, the seemingly sealed package contained eleven lumps of sugar rather than the coveted pearls.
The Plumage PlundererThere are plenty of reasons a criminal might want to break into a museum - ancient artefacts, paintings or jewels could be worth a hefty sum to the right (and unquestioning) collector.
- The Mystery of the Golden Toilet
- The Case of the Bee Burglar
- The Classy Banco Rio Bandits
- The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist
- The Bridge Boosters of Slavkov
- The Pink Pearl Pilferer
- The Sweet-Truck Score
- The Plumage Plunderer
- The Komarovo Church Caper
- The San Antonio Shark-Nappers
- The Louvre's Cherry-Picker Perpetrators
- The Case of the Severed Toe Swallower
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| Thieves used a truck with a mechanical lift to burgle the Louvre... (redcharlie) |
The Mystery of the Golden Toilet
Did you know that an artist once made a golden toilet? The piece (called "America") by Maurizio Cattelan was displayed at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, where it could be booked in three minute slots - and served as a fully functional lavatory.Now you might wonder if this is really "art" but you can't deny that a lump of gold worth just shy of five million pounds has a certain attraction. In 2019 a gang of seven crooks ripped the fixture from its plumbing, leaving sections of the building to flood as they made their escape.
Perhaps the toilet was a comment on the American Dream (or on humanity in general) but it's unlikely the crew wanted it as a conversation piece. It's more feasible that it was melted down for gold - after all, it would be very hard to disguise!
The Case of the Bee Burglar
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| Bees can be surprisingly valuable... (Pexels) |
In the rainy summer of 2017, Anglesey's beekeeping community buzzed with news of a bee rustler - around 40,000 bees had been stolen from the hives of keeper Paul Williams.
The motive for the theft was unknown, but it's possible that rustle was attempting to boost the honey production of their own hives - the poor weather had led to a honey shortfall, which the thief may have been attempting to counter with a fresh influx of bees. After all, it's hard to imagine that a non-beekeeper would manage to make off with that many insects (at least without ending up in the hospital!)
Believe it or not, bee theft is a lot more common than you might expect - especially in the USA, where the insects are needed to pollinate almonds. There are nowhere near enough bees in California to service the almond fields, so smuggled bees can command a high price on the black market. One stash of stolen bees was valued at a million dollars and left the bee bandit facing ten years of jail time.
The Classy Banco Rio Bandits
The idea of gentleman thieves and bank robbers is a bit misleading - normally these criminals are quite happy to shed blood and spread terror if it lets them get away with the goods. That said, the crew that robbed Argentina's Banco Rio in 2006 did their best to replicate a Hollywood movie.
The robbers took a strange approach to the heist. They swapped four hostages for a delivery of pizza, sang happy birthday to another hostage and even left souvenirs when they escaped - the toy guns they had used to take twenty-three hostages!
It turned out that the weird behavior and impromptu pizza party had all been a ruse, giving the crooks time to enter a premade escape tunnel. They dropped into the sewers and made their way underneath the heavily armed police outside to a van (modified with a trapdoor) parked over a drain.
Overall, the gang made off with around twenty million dollars worth of cash and valuables, a perfect crime... if an argument between one of the perps and his wife hadn't led her to report the theft.
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| Beware the syrup barons... (Luke Tokaryk) |
In 2012 Canada was shaken to the core by a shocking revelation - thieves had been siphoning maple syrup from storage barrels, leaving eighteen million Canadian dollars worth of the sweet liquid unaccounted for!
Maple syrup is (shockingly) a big deal in Canada. The majority of it comes from the "Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers" an almost cartel-like group that regulates the price and distribution of the fluid. If the powers-that-be decide there is too much on the market, the surplus syrup is stored in barrel-filled warehouses.
There are also steep penalties for anyone that goes against "Big Maple." In 2017 maple farmer Angele Grenier was issued a significant fine by the Canadian courts for not selling her syrup through official channels.
Between 2011 and 2012, Richard Vallières and a gang of sticky-fingered associates began replacing the contents of the barrels with water and making off with the maple syrup. The theft was only discovered when an inspector who was climbing the barrels accidentally tipped one over!
Vallières had his day in court, ending up in prison with a hefty nine million Canadian dollar fine. As to what happened to the syrup, it seems to have been fenced throughout Canada and the USA!
Between 2011 and 2012, Richard Vallières and a gang of sticky-fingered associates began replacing the contents of the barrels with water and making off with the maple syrup. The theft was only discovered when an inspector who was climbing the barrels accidentally tipped one over!
Vallières had his day in court, ending up in prison with a hefty nine million Canadian dollar fine. As to what happened to the syrup, it seems to have been fenced throughout Canada and the USA!
The Bridge Boosters of Slavkov
Loket and Horni Slavkov are two small villages in the Czech Republic, connected by steel railway bridge... or at least they were.
In 2012, an enterprisingly ambitious gang of thieves used a crane to dismantle the structure - they were even able to convince a routine police patrol that they were putting in a bicycle path, with the aid of some well-forged documents.
The crooks made off with a haul of metal from the bridge and a fair chunk of railway track... but despite the effort involved in the heist, the estimated scrap value of the metal only came to around $6000.
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| Thieves switched pearls for sugar lumps... (oliver-eyth) |
Here's a rather more glamorous heist, dealing with a string of flawless pink pearls held by Max Mayer of Hatton Garden.
Known throughout high society as the "Mona Lisa of pearls" the piece was insured by the specialist (and highly expensive) Lloyds of London.
The theft occurred when the pearls were sent to France for a viewing and possible sale. When the potential buyer declined and returned the pearls via registered courier, the seemingly sealed package contained eleven lumps of sugar rather than the coveted pearls.
The combined efforts of Lloyds and Scotland Yard discovered that known thief Joseph Grizzard was the culprit. He had intercepted the package and had substituted the pearls with sugar lumps weighing exactly the same to evade detection. Police lured Grizzard and his gang to Chancery Lane tube station and arrested them, but were unable to recover the pearls.
That's not the end of the story though. The "Mona Lisa of Pearls" eventually turned up in a gutter, seemingly dumped by an associate of Grizzard that had been spooked by the investigation. Piano-maker Augustus Horne saw the abandoned package and found a broken string of pearls inside - he gave one to a local urchin to use as a marble, but handed the rest in to the police!
The Sweet-Truck Score
Most thieves look for valuables, the kind of easily concealable thing that can turn a quick and easy profit with the right buyer. In 2017 Germany, thieves took a different approach and stole around twenty tons of Nutella and chocolates from a delivery lorry!
The sweet-toothed thieves made off with a haul valued at around £60,000 - and presumably the chocolates would have been pretty easy to fence. Curiously, a lorry carrying thirty tons of fruit juice vanished over the same weekend. Perhaps the bandits were planning a massive party - or were the henchmen of a vigilante dentist?
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| Fancy feathers for fly-fishers... (Julian Hanslmaier) |
This wasn't the haul sought by American student Edwin Rist when he broke into a branch of the British Natural History museum in 2009. Instead, the amateur burglar was looking for rare bird skins... or more precisely, their feathers.
Rist cased the museum by posing as a photographer and returned later to raid the collection. He made off with around three hundred rare skins, but was foiled when a buyer became suspicious of his merchandise - Rist was ordered to pay over twelve-thousand pounds or face prison.
Rist cased the museum by posing as a photographer and returned later to raid the collection. He made off with around three hundred rare skins, but was foiled when a buyer became suspicious of his merchandise - Rist was ordered to pay over twelve-thousand pounds or face prison.
So what was the plan regarding the stolen feathers? Rist planned to sell them to avid fly-fishers via internet forums and eBay!
Did you know that thieves once stole a church?
The Russian Orthodox Church of the Resurrection stood outside the village of Komarovo since 1809. The locals had largely abandoned the building, though people had floated the odd suggestion about resuming services.
These plans were put to rest in 2009, when the villagers realized that only the foundations and some sections of wall remained. No one had noticed a patient group of thieves removing the masonry and fittings brick by brick as time went by!
You might be wondering why the thieves would go to all that effort - Russian churches often include valuable religious icons that a crook could sell, while the masonry can provide a wealth of well-made building materials.
The San Antonio Shark-NappersIt's not everyday you get to witness a shark-napping. The alarm was raised at the San Antonio Aquarium when staff noticed a baby stroller dripping water as it was wheeled out of the building.
As it would turn out, the stroller contained a small shark that the group of thieves had grabbed from one of the display pools. When confronted, the suspects made a break for it - unaware that their details (and offence) had been captured by the aquarium's security system.
Police were able to locate the would-be shark-nappers (who were in the process of trying to sell the fish on Facebook.) Fortunately the abducted horn shark (known as "Miss Helen") seems to have survived the adventure unscathed!
The Case of the Severed Toe Swallower
Dawson City in Yukon has a very special drink available for bold (or insane) tourists. The Sourtoe is a simple shot of whiskey... garnished with a preserved human toe. Drinking the fluid gains you access to the "Sourtoe Cocktail Club" provided you pass one condition: “You can drink it fast. You can drink it slow. But your lips must touch that gnarly toe.”
The Sourtoe comes from the prohibition era of America, when booze-smuggling brothers Otto and Louie Linken got caught in a blizzard. Louie put his foot through the ice and by the time the brothers got back to their cabin, frostbite had set in. Otto severed the toe with an axe and the brothers preserved it in a jar of alcohol as a morbid keepsake. Around 50 years later in 1973, Captain Dick Stevenson found the toe and came up with the idea of the cocktail.
The Komarovo Church Caper
The Russian Orthodox Church of the Resurrection stood outside the village of Komarovo since 1809. The locals had largely abandoned the building, though people had floated the odd suggestion about resuming services.
These plans were put to rest in 2009, when the villagers realized that only the foundations and some sections of wall remained. No one had noticed a patient group of thieves removing the masonry and fittings brick by brick as time went by!
You might be wondering why the thieves would go to all that effort - Russian churches often include valuable religious icons that a crook could sell, while the masonry can provide a wealth of well-made building materials.
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| Stealing a shark is odd, to say the least... (David Clode) |
As it would turn out, the stroller contained a small shark that the group of thieves had grabbed from one of the display pools. When confronted, the suspects made a break for it - unaware that their details (and offence) had been captured by the aquarium's security system.
Police were able to locate the would-be shark-nappers (who were in the process of trying to sell the fish on Facebook.) Fortunately the abducted horn shark (known as "Miss Helen") seems to have survived the adventure unscathed!
The Louvre's Cherry-Picker Perpetrators
As some of the heists here demonstrate, being bold can get you places subtlety might not. The "balcon de Charles IX" of the outside of the Louvre Museum overlooks the streets of Paris - and in 2025 a team of thieves parked a lift-equipped truck right outside it!
The heisters used power tools to break into the Gallery of Apollo through a window, chasing off the unarmed security in the process. In less than five minutes they'd cut through the display cases and grabbed diamond encrusted jewelry valued at over a hundred million dollars... though they did drop a diamond encrusted crown as they made their get away!
Things didn't go quite to plan for the crooks though - they attempted to torch the truck to destroy any DNA evidence, but were forced to flee on their scooters instead. On the other hand, the makers of the truck released an advert based on the heist!
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| Toe not included (thankfully!) (Lucian-traveling4fun) |
There's been some odd thefts in this list, but I think this may be the strangest. First, we need a little background...
The Sourtoe comes from the prohibition era of America, when booze-smuggling brothers Otto and Louie Linken got caught in a blizzard. Louie put his foot through the ice and by the time the brothers got back to their cabin, frostbite had set in. Otto severed the toe with an axe and the brothers preserved it in a jar of alcohol as a morbid keepsake. Around 50 years later in 1973, Captain Dick Stevenson found the toe and came up with the idea of the cocktail.
Onto the theft - in 2013 Joshua Clark deliberately swallowed the toe, slapping $500 (the posted fine for such a misdeed) on the bar and leaving. Though this wasn't actually the original toe, replacements are understandably hard to source. The fine has been increased to $2500 and an apparently remorseful Clark offered to will his own toe to the club upon his death.
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