Tom McCarthy - Daring Heists: Real Tales of Sensational Robberies and Robbers

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Contents

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We all know stealing is wrong. So why an entire book about thieves and thefts?

What drives a person to steal? Is it the thrill of the chase? Desperation? A love of puzzles? The men and women in this collection of stories have lots of different reasons for pulling off some of the biggest and most imaginative robberies in history.

The heists in this book required skill and ambition and intelligence. Bravery, too, because the thieves knew if they were caught, theyd spend a lot of time in prison. Some of the people you will read about ended up in jail. Some didnt.

The man who called himself D.B. Cooper was a planner. He knew what he was doing, right down to picking the right airplane to hijack. He knew how to jump from a speeding jet in the middle of the night over a dark and mountainous forest.

When he jumped, he had two knapsacks filled with cash that he had demanded from Northwest Airlines. The very next day, the police, FBI, and the military began a search that lasted more than 40 years and turned up only new mysteries. D.B. Cooper has never been found.

The men who robbed the Royal Mail train of millions of dollars in 1963 were planners, too. They planned the robbery for months. A gang member rode the train and studied how it was guarded. They bought a hideout and radios and a big truck to haul the money away after the robbery. They were quiet about it.

What later became known as the Great Train Robbery was so surprising people are still talking about it today, more than 50 years later.

What about Marm Mandelbaum? For more than 25 years, she led a gang that frustrated both the police and the famous Pinkerton National Detective Agency. They knew she was receiving thousands of dollars worth of jewelry and money stolen from the wealthiest people in New York City. But they could never catch her in the act.

You want stealthy? Take the gang who broke into Bostons Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990 and stole 13 world-famous paintings worth millions. Then they disappeared. The gang was never captured and the precious art has never been found.

Art attracted another gang that broke into the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico. They stole rare gold, jade, turquoise, and obsidian artifacts from ancient Mexican civilizations, a collection worth more money than anyone could imagine. The police thought these crooks had to have been cultured and educated to want to steal these artifacts. However, the police were wrongthey were shocked by the people who turned out to have pulled off the heist.

Lets take a walk through the seamy underworld of thieves.

It was mid-afternoon at the busy Portland International Airport in Oregon on Wednesday, November 24, 1971.

A man carrying a black briefcase and wearing a dark suit walked up to the counter of Northwest Orient Airlines. He purchased a one-way ticket to Seattle, an hours flight by jet over the mountainous and thick forest of the Pacific Northwest. The man told the ticket agent his name was Dan Cooper.

Dan Cooper, the man who would later become known as D.B. Cooper, was among tens of thousands of people across the country trying to get home for the holiday. The next day was Thanksgiving, followed by the long, relaxing holiday weekend. Just about everyone in the country was looking forward to a restful holiday with friends and family.

D.B. Cooper had other plans. Resting and relaxing werent going to be a part of his Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

It is only 173 miles from Portland to Seattle. On a jet, the trip is a short hop. D.B. Cooper had to act quickly to get his plan to work.

After he bought his ticket, he joined a small group of people waiting for the call to board the jet, a Boeing 727-100. When the flight was announced at 4 p.m., he walked calmly onto the plane and sat near the rear, in seat 15D. No one else sat with himhe had the row of seats to himself.

Later, eyewitnesses would say he was about 6 feet tall. People guessed he was about 40 years old. He wore a neatly pressed shirt with a collar and a black necktie held in place by a mother-of-pearl tie pin. He looked like a businessman on his way home. Thats what he wanted people to think. Of course, he had other plans.

As D.B. Cooper and his fellow passengers settled in for the flight, he sat back and lit a cigarette. In 1971, smoking on airplanes was allowed. Then, he ordered a drink from the flight attendant, who was busy helping passengers settle in for the flight.

It was getting dark as the plane taxied down the runway for what everyone thought would be a routine flight north to Seattle. The temperature outside was typical for November in the Pacific Northwest, chilly at around 45 degrees. It was starting to drizzle.

Including the crew and D.B. Cooper, there were 42 people on board. Their lives would never be the same.

One can only guess what was going through D.B. Coopers mind as the plane lifted through the clouds and headed north. Was he crazy?

Did he know what he was doing? Or was he just hoping for the best? Since that day, everyone who has chased D.B. Cooper has said that he planned his exploit right down to the finest detail.

D.B. Cooper knew exactly what he was doing, they all say.

It was no coincidence that the Boeing 727-100 had a door at the back, with a stairway that could be lowered. It was no coincidence that the three jet engines that powered the plane were placed high on the fuselage. The engines were not level with doorways, as on some passenger jets that had the engines on their wings.

As the plane leveled off after its ascent, D.B. Cooper called the flight attendant to his seat and handed her a note on a neatly folded piece of paper. Busy settling the other passengers, she put it in her pocket and forgot about it.

A moment later, he called her back. Later, she could recall his exact, polite words.

Miss, you had better look at my note. I have a bomb.

Startled, she stared at the man in the nice suit. He briefly opened the briefcase on his lap, just enough to let her catch a glimpse of what was inside. Packed neatly in the leather case were eight red cylinders, attached by wires to what looked like batteries. D.B. Cooper quickly and calmly closed the briefcase.

Alarmed, she pulled the note from her pocket and read.

It was printed neatly in capital letters, written with a felt-tip pen. Its message was clear and chilling. The polite man in the business suit wanted $200,000 in $20 bills and four parachutes. He also wanted to have the jet refueled as soon as possible after their arrival in Seattle.