Top 10 Young Killers

10

Eric Smith

January 22, 1980

“You may think I’m a threat to the well-being of society. And I can understand why you would feel that way. The fact is that I’m not. I’d be an asset to society.”

At 13, Eric Smith was bullied because of his thick glasses, freckles, long red hair and one other quality: He had protruding, elongated ears. These were believed to be a side effect of medicine his mother had taken for her epilepsy when she was pregnant. Police charged Smith with the murder of a four-year-old boy named Derrick Robie. The younger child had been strangled, had large rocks dropped on his head, and had been sodomized with a small stick. When asked why he did it, Smith cannot give a definite answer. A psychiatrist diagnosed Smith with intermittent explosive disorder, a condition in which a person cannot control inner rage. Smith was convicted and went to prison. As of today, he’s been in prison for six years and has been denied parole five times.

9

Joshua Phillips

March 17, 1984

“There should be a sensitivity to the fact that a 14-year-old is not a little adult.” – Florida Governor Jeb Bush

What started as a regular room cleaning ended with the conviction of a 14-year-old boy named Joshua Phillips. His mother went to clean up his room one morning after Phillips left for school. Mrs. Phillips noticed a wet spot under her son’s bed and thought it was a leak from his waterbed. As she was investigating the bed to see if it needed to be drained, she found electrical tape holding the frame together. She thought her son had known the about leak but didn’t want to get into trouble. She removed enough tape to discover her son’s sock underneath, but she was surprised to feel something cold. The beam of her flashlight showed her the dead body of Maddie Clifton, an 8-year-old neighbor who had been missing for seven days.

People in the community, especially the boy’s parents, could hardly believe he could have killed Clifton. Phillips was one of the neighbors who had volunteered to search for the missing girl. Because he was under 16, Phillips did not qualify for the death penalty. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, with no possibility of being freed. To this day, Phillips has not stated his motives for killing Clifton. He said he accidentally hit her in the eye with a baseball bat, and then dragged her to his room where he hit and stabbed her, but the jury did not believe his story.

8

George Stinney

October 21, 1929–June 16, 1944

“only when asked to arise and be sentenced, did he appear nervous and slightly excited” (Rowe, p.1)

On June 16, 1944, the United States set a record when they executed George Stinney (14 years old), the youngest person to be legally executed in the US during the twentieth century. George was convicted of the murder of two girls named Betty June Binnicker (11) and Mary Emma Thames (8) who were both found in a muddy hole. The girls suffered severe fractures to their skulls, inflicted by a railroad spike found some distance from the town. George confessed to the crime and said that he wanted to have sex with Betty but ended up killing the girls. He was tried and sentenced to death in the electric chair; the case was not appealed because his family had no money to pay for a continuation. 

7

Lionel Tate

January 30, 1987

“I was imitating the professional wrestlers”

What might be thought of as a regular TV wrestling match led to the death of a six-year-old girl named Tiffany Eunick. Kathleen Grossett-Tate was trusted to babysit Tiffany and brought her over to her house one evening. She left Tiffany with her son Lionel, age 14, to watch the television when she went upstairs. Around 10 p.m., she yelled at the children to be quiet, but didn’t check what the noise was about, thinking that they were just playing. Forty-five minutes later, Lionel called to his mother and told her that the girl was not breathing. He explained that they had been wrestling and he had her in a headlock as he slammed her on the table.

Authorities were called and a medical examiner reported that the cause of death was due to forceful stomping that lacerated Tiffany’s liver. Aside from that, experts testified that the girl suffered a fractured skull and rib, swelling in the brain from a beating that lasted from one to five minutes, and 35 other injuries. Tate changed his statement later and said that he jumped on her from the staircase. Tate was sentenced to a lifetime of imprisonment without parole in 2001, but his sentence was overturned on the basis that he was not given a mental competency hearing before, or during, the trial. He was released in 2004 with 10 years’ probation.

6

Barry Dale Loukaitis

“This sure beats algebra, doesn’t it?”

On February 2, 1996, the Frontier Middle School was devastated by a hostage-taking incident and shooting spree that occurred in an algebra class. It took the lives of three people (two students and a teacher) and resulted in the critical injury of one student. The person accused was a 14-year-old boy named Barry Dale Loukaitis, who was experiencing delusional and messianic thoughts before the shooting. Barry was dressed to look like a gunslinger from the Wild West in a black duster, and armed with a .30-30 caliber rifle, a .357 caliber pistol and a .25 caliber pistol that belonged to his father. The students were held hostage for 10 minutes before a gym coach tricked and outwitted the boy.

It was believed that, aside from a history of mental illness and dysfunctional issues in his family, Barry was influenced by Pearl Jam’s song and video “Jeremy.” The video shows a troubled youth committing suicide in front of his classmates and teacher. It was also reported that he said “This sure beats algebra, doesn’t it?” when he saw his classmates panic. This is a quote from a Stephen King novel, Rage, in which the protagonist kills two teachers and takes his algebra class hostage. Barry is currently serving two life sentences, with an additional 205 years in prison.

5

Craig Price

“As far as the girls go, it was my utmost intention to let them live.”

Joan Heaton (39), along with her two daughters, Jennifer (10) and Melissa (8), were found lifeless, blood-soaked and brutally murdered in their home on September 4, 1989. They were stabbed so fiercely that the knife broke off in Melissa’s neck. Police reported that Joan had approximately 60 stab wounds, while the young girls had approximately 30. The authorities believed that burglary was the suspect’s main motive; the knife used was from the Heaton’s kitchen and the women had possibly caught the suspect and fought against him. It was also believed that the burglar must have been someone from the Heaton’s neighborhood, who would have obtained a cut or wound in the hand, due to the force and number of times the victims were stabbed.

Craig was spotted by the police with a bandage on his hand, but said that he had smashed a car’s window. The police did not believe his story. They investigated him and charged him after finding the knife, gloves and other bloody items when they searched Craig’s room. He admitted to the crime and to another murder that had taken place in the neighborhood two years earlier. The authorities already suspected him as the murderer in that case, which was similar to Heaton’s and had started as burglary. Craig was tried and convicted before his 16th birthday, and is still in jail.

4

Graham Young

September 7, 1947 – August 22, 1990

“It grew on me like a drug habit, except it was not me who was taking the drugs.”

At an early age, Graham Young had been fascinated with chemistry, particularly types of poison and their effects on people. His other great interest was idolizing murderers such as Dr. Hawley Crippen, William Palmer, Adolf Hitler and others. Young started experimenting with poisons when he was 14. He usually lied about his age, and explained that a given poison was for a school experiment so he could buy the chemicals he needed. His family and friends were his victims. His father, upon becoming ill, originally thought he just had a virus of some sort. Then the apparent illness struck his wife and daughter. All suffered from continuous vomiting, diarrhea and stomach pains. In 1962, the mother of Young’s stepmother died from poisoning.

At 14, Young already had the expertise of a postgraduate chemistry student, all self-learned through library books. He sometimes became a victim of his own poisoning when he forgot on which foods he had placed his toxic chemicals. Young was caught when his teacher inspected his desk one evening after school, suspicious about the odd experiments Young was suggesting to the class. The teacher found poisons, essays about famous prisoners, and sketches of dying men. These revelations led him to call the police. Young was sent to a maximum security hospital, but this did not stop him from poisoning hospital staff and fellow inmates (one of whom died). His knowledge was so broad that he could extract cyanide from laurel bush leaves. Young was released when he was 23 and went to live with his sister. His poisoning spree continued—his victims most often were coworkers. Young was sent back to prison and eventually died there.

3

Jesse Pomeroy

November 29, 1859–September 29, 1932

“I might have done it.”

Jesse Pomeroy, born on November 29, 1959, in Charlestown, Massachusetts, was referred to as the youngest person convicted of murder, in the first degree, in the history of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Pomeroy started his cruel acts against other children when he was 11. He had taken and trapped seven children in a hidden spot where he would strip, tie and torture them, by using a knife or by poking pins into their flesh. He was caught and sent to a reform school, where he was supposed to stay until he was 21, but was released after a year and a half for good behavior.

After three years, he had changed from bad to worse. He kidnapped and killed a 10 year old girl, named Katie Curran, and was also accused of the murder of a four year old boy, whose mutilated body was found in Dorchester Bay. Although there is a lack of evidence that can conclusively link Pomeroy to the little boy’s death, he was convicted for the death of Katie when the police found her body in the basement of Pomeroy’s mother’s dress shop, where it was carelessly left in an ash heap. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, which he served in solitary confinement; he died of natural causes at the age of 72.

2

Jon Venables and Robert Thompson

August 13, 1982, August 23, 1982

“All little boys are nice until they get older.” – Robert Thompson

James Bulger’s mother left her two-year-old son at the butcher shop’s door thinking that it would not take her long to return, since there was no queue in the store.  Little did she know that it would be her last time she would see her son alive.

Jon and Robert, who were at the same mall as the Bulgers, were participating in their usual activities: skipping class, browsing the stores, pocketing things when the salespeople turned their backs, and climbing chairs in the restaurants until they were chased out. The boys came up with an idea to have a little boy get lost outside so that he would get knocked over by a vehicle. It was reported that the boys had a similar previous attempt on a boy before James, which failed because the mother had become aware of her missing child and found him before they could take him outside.

During their two-mile walk, the 10-year-old boys had punched, kicked, picked up and dropped James on his head. Some of the acts were seen by passersby who ignored them, thinking that they were just two older brothers who didn’t know how to take care of their younger brother. Jon and Robert brought James onto the local railway, where they flung paint in his left eye, threw stones at him, beat him with bricks, and hit him with an iron bar. They also sexually assaulted him and laid his body on the railroad track, covering his bleeding head with bricks when they thought he was dead. It was reported that James died sometime before the train hit him.

1

Mary Bell

May 26, 1957

“Murder isn’t that bad; we all die sometime anyway.”

Brian Howe was found dead and covered with purple weeds and grass, days after the death of Martin Brown who died of asphyxiation. His hair was cut away, puncture marks were found on his thighs, and his genitals were partially skinned. Apart from these marks and injuries, a letter “M” had been imprinted on his stomach. This was originally an “N,” but Mary added a line to make it look like an “M.” The three-year-old boy had been strangled to death. When the investigation narrowed down to Mary Bell, she implicated herself by describing in detail a pair of broken scissors—which was confidential evidence—that had been played with by an 8-year-old boy whom Brian was allegedly with, according to Bell.

Mary’s family background may be responsible for her unusual behavior. She thought for a long time that her father was Billy Bell, a habitual criminal who had been arrested for armed robbery, but her biological father is unknown to this day. Mary claimed that her mother, Betty, who was a prostitute, had forced her to engage in sexual acts with men—particularly her mother’s clients—at the age of four. Mary ended up at an all-boys facility after her trial; she was too young to be held in prison and too dangerous to be kept in an unequipped mental hospital or an institution that housed troubled children. Her mother repeatedly sold Mary’s story to the press at the time of her daughter’s conviction. Mary was only 11 at that time. She was released after 23 years and fought and won the case for both her own anonymity and that of her daughter. This order is consequently known as a Mary Bell Order.

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Top 10 Evil Human Experiments

Stanford Prison Experiment10

The Stanford prison experiment was a psychological study of human responses to captivity and its behavioral effects on both authorities and inmates in prison. The experiment was conducted in 1971 by a team of researchers led by psychologist Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University. Undergraduate volunteers played the roles of both guards and prisoners living in a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology building.

Prisoners and guards rapidly adapted to their roles, stepping beyond the boundaries of what had been predicted and leading to dangerous and psychologically damaging situations. One-third of the guards were judged to have exhibited “genuine” sadistic tendencies, while many prisoners were emotionally traumatized and two had to be removed from the experiment early. Finally, Zimbardo, alarmed at the increasingly abusive anti-social behavior from his subjects, terminated the entire experiment early.

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The Monster Study

The Monster Study was a stuttering experiment on 22 orphan children in Davenport, Iowa, in 1939 conducted by Wendell Johnson at the University of Iowa. Johnson chose one of his graduate students, Mary Tudor, to conduct the experiment and he supervised her research. After placing the children in control and experimental groups, Tudor gave positive speech therapy to half of the children, praising the fluency of their speech, and negative speech therapy to the other half, belittling the children for every speech imperfection and telling them they were stutterers. Many of the normal speaking orphan children who received negative therapy in the experiment suffered negative psychological effects and some retained speech problems during the course of their life. Dubbed “The Monster Study” by some of Johnson’s peers who were horrified that he would experiment on orphan children to prove a theory, the experiment was kept hidden for fear Johnson’s reputation would be tarnished in the wake of human experiments conducted by the Nazis during World War II. The University of Iowa publicly apologized for the Monster Study in 2001.

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Project 4.1

Project 4.1 was the designation for a medical study conducted by the United States of those residents of the Marshall Islands exposed to radioactive fallout from the March 1, 1954 Castle Bravo nuclear test at Bikini Atoll, which had an unexpectedly large yield. For the first decade after the test, the effects were ambiguous and statistically difficult to correlate to radiation exposure: miscarriages and stillbirths among exposed Rongelap women doubled in the first five years after the accident, but then returned to normal; some developmental difficulties and impaired growth appeared in children, but in no clear-cut pattern. In the decades that followed, though, the effects were undeniable. Children began to suffer disproportionately from thyroid cancer (due to exposure to radioiodines), and almost a third of those exposed developed neoplasms by 1974.

As a Department of Energy Committee writing on the human radiation experiments wrote, “It appears to have been almost immediately apparent to the AEC and the Joint Task Force running the Castle series that research on radiation effects could be done in conjunction with the medical treatment of the exposed populations.” The DOE report also concluded that “The dual purpose of what is now a DOE medical program has led to a view by the Marshallese that they were being used as ‘guinea pigs’ in a ‘radiation experiment.’”

7

Project MKULTRA

Project MKULTRA, or MK-ULTRA, was the code name for a CIA mind-control research program, run by the Office of Scientific Intelligence, that began in the early 1950s and continued at least through the late 1960s. There is much published evidence that the project involved the surreptitious use of many types of drugs, as well as other methodologies, to manipulate individual mental states and to alter brain function.

Experiments included administering LSD to CIA employees, military personnel, doctors, other government agents, prostitutes, mentally ill patients, and members of the general public in order to study their reactions. LSD and other drugs were usually administered without the subject’s knowledge and informed consent, a violation of the Nuremberg Code that the U.S. agreed to follow after WWII.

Efforts to “recruit” subjects were often illegal, even discounting the fact that drugs were being administered (though actual use of LSD, for example, was legal in the United States until October 6, 1966). In Operation Midnight Climax, the CIA set up several brothels to obtain a selection of men who would be too embarrassed to talk about the events. The men were dosed with LSD, and the brothels were equipped with one-way mirrors and the “sessions” were filmed for later viewing and study.

In 1973, CIA Director Richard Helms ordered all MKULTRA files destroyed. Pursuant to this order, most CIA documents regarding the project were destroyed, making a full investigation of MKULTRA virtually impossible.

6

The Aversion Project

South Africa’s apartheid army forced white lesbian and gay soldiers to undergo ‘sex-change’ operations in the 1970′s and the 1980′s, and submitted many to chemical castration, electric shock, and other unethical medical experiments. Although the exact number is not known, former apartheid army surgeons estimate that as many as 900 forced ‘sexual reassignment’ operations may have been performed between 1971 and 1989 at military hospitals, as part of a top-secret program to root out homosexuality from the service.

Army psychiatrists aided by chaplains aggressively ferreted out suspected homosexuals from the armed forces, sending them discretely to military psychiatric units, chiefly ward 22 of 1 Military Hospital at Voortrekkerhoogte, near Pretoria. Those who could not be ‘cured’ with drugs, aversion shock therapy, hormone treatment, and other radical ‘psychiatric’ means were chemically castrated or given sex-change operations.

Although several cases of lesbian soldiers abused have been documented so far—including one botched sex-change operation—most of the victims appear to have been young, 16 to 24-year-old white males drafted into the apartheid army.

Dr. Aubrey Levin (the head of the study) is now Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry (Forensic Division) at the University of Calgary’s Medical School. He is also in private practice, as a member in good standing of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta.

North Korean Experimentation

There have been many reports of North Korean human experimentation. These reports show human rights abuses similar to those of Nazi and Japanese human experimentation in World War II. These allegations of human rights abuses are denied by the North Korean government, who claim that all prisoners in North Korea are humanely treated.

One former North Korean woman prisoner tells how 50 healthy women prisoners were selected and given poisoned cabbage leaves, which all the women had to eat despite cries of distress from those who had already eaten. All 50 were dead after 20 minutes of vomiting blood and anal bleeding. Refusing to eat would have meant reprisals against them and their families.

Kwon Hyok, a former prison Head of Security at Camp 22, described laboratories equipped respectively for poison gas, suffocation gas and blood experiments, in which 3 or 4 people, normally a family, are the experimental subjects. After undergoing medical checks, the chambers are sealed and poison is injected through a tube, while “scientists” observe from above through glass. Kwon Hyok claims to have watched one family of 2 parents, a son and a daughter die from suffocating gas, with the parents trying to save the children using mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for as long as they had the strength.

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Poison laboratory of the Soviets

The Poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services, also known as Laboratory 1, Laboratory 12 and “The Chamber”, was a covert poison research and development facility of the Soviet secret police agencies. The Soviets tested a number of deadly poisons on prisoners from the Gulag (“enemies of the people”), including mustard gas, ricin, digitoxin and many others. The goal of the experiments was to find a tasteless, odorless chemical that could not be detected post mortem. Candidate poisons were given to the victims, with a meal or drink, as “medication”.

Finally, a preparation with the desired properties called C-2 was developed. According to witness testimonies, the victim changed physically, became shorter, weakened quickly, became calm and silent and died within fifteen minutes. Mairanovsky brought to the laboratory people of varied physical condition and ages in order to have a more complete picture about the action of each poison.

In addition to human experimentation, Mairanovsky personally executed people with poisons, under the supervision of Pavel Sudoplatov.

3

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study

The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male was a clinical study, conducted between 1932 and 1972 in Tuskegee, Alabama, in which 399 (plus 201 control group without syphilis) poor — and mostly illiterate — African American sharecroppers were denied treatment for Syphilis.

This study became notorious because it was conducted without due care to its subjects, and led to major changes in how patients are protected in clinical studies. Individuals enrolled in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study did not give informed consent and were not informed of their diagnosis; instead they were told they had “bad blood” and could receive free medical treatment, rides to the clinic, meals and burial insurance in case of death in return for participating. In 1932, when the study started, standard treatments for syphilis were toxic, dangerous, and of questionable effectiveness. Part of the original goal of the study was to determine if patients were better off not being treated with these toxic remedies. For many participants, treatment was intentionally denied. Many patients were lied to and given placebo treatments—in order to observe the fatal progression of the disease.

By the end of the study, only 74 of the test subjects were still alive. Twenty-eight of the men had died directly of syphilis, 100 were dead of related complications, 40 of their wives had been infected, and 19 of their children had been born with congenital syphilis.

2

Unit 731

Unit 731 was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II. It was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes carried out by Japanese personnel.

Some of the numerous atrocities committed by the commander Shiro Ishii and others under his command in Unit 731 include: vivisection of living people (including pregnant women who were impregnated by the doctors), prisoners had limbs amputated and reattached to other parts of their body, some prisoners had parts of their bodies frozen and thawed to study the resulting untreated gangrene. Humans were also used as living test cases for grenades and flame throwers. Prisoners were injected with strains of diseases, disguised as vaccinations, to study their effects. To study the effects of untreated venereal diseases, male and female prisoners were deliberately infected with syphilis and gonorrhea via rape, then studied. A complete list of these horrors can be found here.

Having been granted immunity by the American Occupation Authorities at the end of the war, Ishii never spent any time in jail for his crimes and died at the age of 67 of throat cancer.

1

Nazi Experiments

Nazi human experimentation was medical experimentation on large numbers of people by the German Nazi regime in its concentration camps during World War II. At Auschwitz, under the direction of Dr. Eduard Wirths, selected inmates were subjected to various experiments which were supposedly designed to help German military personnel in combat situations, to aid in the recovery of military personnel that had been injured, and to advance the racial ideology backed by the Third Reich.

Experiments on twin children in concentration camps were created to show the similarities and differences in the genetics and eugenics of twins, as well as to see if the human body can be unnaturally manipulated. The central leader of the experiments was Dr. Josef Mengele, who performed experiments on over 1,500 sets of imprisoned twins, of which fewer than 200 individuals survived the studies. Dr. Mengele organized the testing of genetics in twins. The twins were arranged by age and sex and kept in barracks in between the test, which ranged from the injection of different chemicals into the eyes of the twins to see if it would change their colors to literally sewing the twins together in hopes of creating conjoined twins.

In 1942 the Luftwaffe conducted experiments to learn how to treat hypothermia. One study forced subjects to endure a tank of ice water for up to three hours (see image above). Another study placed prisoners naked in the open for several hours with temperatures below freezing. The experimenters assessed different ways of rewarming survivors.

From about July 1942 to about September 1943, experiments to investigate the effectiveness of sulfonamide, a synthetic antimicrobial agent, were conducted at Ravensbrück. Wounds inflicted on the subjects were infected with bacteria such as Streptococcus, gas gangrene, and tetanus. Circulation of blood was interrupted by tying off blood vessels at both ends of the wound to create a condition similar to that of a battlefield wound. Infection was aggravated by forcing wood shavings and ground glass into the wounds. The infection was treated with sulfonamide and other drugs to determine their effectiveness.

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Top 10 Bank Robberies of the 21st Century

10. The Agricultural Bank of China Robbery (6.7 Million, 2007)

Executed in China

The largest bank robbery in China’s history occurred in April of 2007 when a cash total of what was equivalent to $6.7 million was embezzled from the Agricultural Bank of China. The robbery was done by two vault managers with the help of two security guards from the branch. Purchasing tickets for the Chinese lottery with money they had stolen (with the intent of winning it and more back from gambling), one manager surprisingly managed it once, but the second manager failed at the second attempt. Soon thereafter other branch managers discovered the missing money and notified police and those involved were arrested. The heist also included 3 other accomplices: a landlord, a cab driver, and a car saleswoman. All accomplices were found and arrested and the two bank managers were later executed for their displays of bank robbing bravado.

9.  The 2009 Bank of Ireland Robbery (9 million, 2009)

Millions of dollars scattered across Dublin

February 2009 at the Bank of Ireland in Dublin, the largest bank robbery in the Republic went down. Criminals included a junior bank employee who kidnapped another employee and forced him to remove $9 million in cash from the bank as his girlfriend and two others were held hostage. Seven people were later arrested, all believed to be members of a well-known Dublin gang. €1.8 million of the stolen cash was located the next day, scattered across Dublin, and in 2010 the man who claimed he was held hostage was also arrested on the suspicion that the robbery had been an inside job. A heist with a twist, earning a place higher on the list for almost $2 million more stolen and the extended rouse.

8.  Northern Bank ($50 million, 2004)

Bank managers’ families held hostage by gunpoint in Ireland

Coming in at number 8 is the Northern Bank robbery in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It makes a huge leap from number 9 with a mere $9 million stolen against the monstrous sum of $50 million that was taken, mostly in pounds sterling. In December of 2004, the heist was carried out by a large, proficient group of thieves making it one of the biggest bank robberies in British history. On the night before the heist, two different groups of armed men disguised as police visited the homes of two officials of the Northern Bank. Once at the homes, they held the families hostage at gunpoint. The following day when officials were sent to work, some remained with the families being held hostage while others waited until the bank closed and the bank officials gave admittance to other members of the gangs. After the cash was stolen, it was transferred from three different vehicles and family members were shortly released before midnight. With only one person being convicted of money laundering, the investigation is still ongoing and the case remains unsolved.

7.  The Graff Diamonds Robbery (65 million, 2009)

Robbers caught, diamonds never found

Buying its place as number 7, The Graff Diamonds robbery takes its place when the largest ever gems heist in British history commenced in August 2009. Nearly $65 million worth of jewelry and gems was stolen with the diamond theft being committed by two men in the guise of customers. Once in the store, the two men produced two handguns used to threaten staff. They made no attempt to conceal their faces from the premises’ CCTV cameras and police later discovered that they had used a professional make-up artist to alter their hair by using wigs and their skin tones and features using latex prosthetics. Later authorities discovered that the same make-up studio had helped disguise members of the gang that robbed the Securitas Depot in 2006 (on our list at number 5). The thieves left in a BMW vehicle and switched cars twice but stupidly left behind a cell phone in which the police were able to track them down. Up to 10 different suspects were arrested, but the gems and jewels have never been recovered.

6.  Banco Central Burglary (70 million, 2005)

Brazilians dig in to a bank vault

Tunneling in at number 6 is the Banco Central Burglary that took place in 2005 in Fortaleza Brazil. The robbers of this cash heist are awarded an A+ for effort on our list. Considered to be among the biggest bank heists of all time, the burglary was the result of painstaking planning by a small gang of burglars who tunneled over 250 feet to the bank’s vault from a nearby property. The robbers used a landscaping business as a front that allowed them to move massive amounts of dirt and rock without looking suspicious. The tunnel was expertly constructed and had sophisticated lighting and even an air conditioning system. After three months of digging, the thieves finally broke into the vault and made off with what was equivalent to $70 million dollars. Since then, police have made a number of arrests in connection with the burglary and recovered roughly $9 million dollars of the haul, but the majority of the suspects are still at large.

5.  The Kent Securitas Depot Robbery (92.5 Million, 2006)

Robber escapes to the West Indies with largest sum of money for four years of decadence

Jumping up in cost from $20 million from the Banco Central Burglary in Brazil was the bank robbery at The Securitas Depot in February 2006 in Kent, England. It makes its reputation as the largest cash heist in British crime history. At least 6 men abducted and threatened the family of the manager, tied up fourteen staff members, and stole what was equivalent to $92.5 million in bank notes. The manager of the depot (abducted while driving) was pulled over by what he thought was a police vehicle due to the blue lights behind the front grill. One of the criminals approached him in a police-style hat and handcuffed him and put him in their vehicle. He was taken to a farm in west Kent while at the same time the manager’s wife and eight-year-old son were being held hostage at their home. They too were then driven to the farm and the depot manager was forced by gunpoint to cooperate or else he and his family would be in danger. The main player of the heist wasn’t arrested until 2010, nearly 4 years later, after having lived it up in the West Indies with the largest sum of the stolen money.

4.  The Antwerp Diamond Center (100 million, 2003)

Thieves bypass one of the most complex security systems in the world in the largest diamond heist ever

The Antwerp Diamond Center in Belgium houses 160 vaults in which diamond brokers leave their stones. In February of 2003, 123 of those vaults were emptied of $100 million worth of their contents by four people. It took two years to orchestrate the details with the criminals renting an office space in the building in order to analyze the alarm system and to learn how to bypass it. They stole keys to the vaults and made copies. On the day of the break in, they recorded over all of the security cameras. Antwerp police later caught them but the $100 million worth of diamonds and other gems has never been found. For bypassing some of the world’s most comprehensive security systems and for two years of meticulous planning, the Antwerp Diamond Heist ranks in at number 4.

3.  Harry Winston Heist (108 Million, 2008)

Two men in Paris dressed in drag make off with diamonds

One of the most downright brazen robberies in recent memory was the Harry Winston Heist. It went down in 2008 when a group of four men stormed into one of Paris’s most exclusive jewelry stores and made off with $108 million in diamonds. The men were disguised as women and armed with a .357 Magnum and a hand grenade. They quickly herded the employees and customers into a corner and started breaking open display cases. After filling a suitcase with precious stones, they made their escape. No one from this robbery has ever been arrested with police suspecting that the robbers– whom they’ve nicknamed “The Pink Panthers”– are a part of a larger criminal organization of Yugoslavians that may have been responsible for a number of other high profile jewelry heists. In the meantime, a $1 million dollar reward is still up for grabs for any information leading to the arrest of the robbers.

2.  Sumitomo Bank in London Heist ($300 Million, 2007)

Expert hackers prove high-tech gadgetry isn’t all it takes to rob a bank and fail

Considered one of the biggest in Britain’s history at $300 million, this heist took place at the Sumitomo Bank in London in September of 2007, but failed stupidly when experienced hackers made simple mistakes in the transfer form not being familiar with the SWIFT system for transferring money internationally. After 23 unsuccessful attempts during the course of two days to wire the money, the fiasco unraveled revealing 2 Belgium men and the security chief of the bank as the culprits. Chief of the bank, Kevin O’ Donoghue, 34, later explained that he had agreed to the heist after the master plan had already been formulated and his family was threatened. The plan almost worked after hackers used a USB memory stick to install “key-logger” software on worker’s computers to which they later downloaded user names and passwords from both private and business accounts of the bank. After attempting various money transfers, all of which failed, the trio was tracked down and prosecuted.

1. Central Bank of Iraq ($1 billion, 2003)

The lowest of the low: Saddam Hussein’s hands caught deep in the coffer

The most shocking bank robbery of the 21st century based on the amount stolen and the complete brainless effort that it takes for a dictator to drain his own country’s bank accounts. In March 2003, Saddam Hussein stole nearly $1 billion from the Central Bank of Iraq before the US began bombing in Baghdad. This is considered the largest bank heist in history with approximately $650 million later found hidden in walls in Saddam Hussein’s palace by US troops. It is believed that this was the bulk of the stolen money. Also, in March a hand-written note surfaced, signed by Saddam, ordering $920 million to be withdrawn and given to his son Qusay. Bank officials state that Qusay and another unidentified man oversaw the cash, boxes of $100 bills, being loaded into trucks during a five-hour operation. Qusay was later killed by US troops in a firefight.

 

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