11 Fun Facts About Famous Heists

In what year did the famous Great Train Robbery take place?

A gang of 15 led by Bruce Reynolds tampered with the lineside signals to halt an overnight mail train in the early hours of 8 August 1963.

What made up the bulk of what the Great Train Robbery gang carried away?

The haul was mostly £1 and £5 notes, in both the older white design and the newer blue one, and filled 120 mail bags.

What was the approximate value of the haul taken in the Great Train Robbery?

The police investigation put the figure at £2,595,997, while the press reported £2,631,784.

Which of these criminals took part in the Great Train Robbery?

Ronnie Biggs gained significant notoriety for his involvement in the Great Train Robbery and his subsequent escape from prison.

Near which type of structure did the Great Train Robbery take place?

The gang stopped the train at a tampered signal, then had it moved half a mile to Bridego Railway Bridge, where the mail bags were unloaded into a waiting truck.

In which country did the gang led by Bruce Reynolds carry out the Great Train Robbery?

The robbery took place in Buckinghamshire, England, and was planned over several months on information from an insider who has never been identified.

Thirteen works of art were taken from a Boston gallery in the early hours of 18 March 1990 and have never been recovered. Which institution was robbed?

No arrests have ever been made. The institution offers a ten million dollar reward, the largest bounty ever put up by a private body.

Leonardo Notarbartolo rented an office above the vault he intended to rob, and disabled a thermal-motion sensor with hair spray. Which city's Diamond Centre did he empty in February 2003?

He had spent months on surveillance, including a supposedly routine visit to the vault itself.

Vincenzo Peruggia's 1911 theft is often credited with turning which painting into the most famous in the world?

He justified the crime on patriotic grounds, insisting the work belonged in Italy.

Over the Easter bank holiday of 2015, burglars climbed down a lift shaft and bored through 50-centimetre vault walls with an industrial drill. Which London jewellery district did they hit?

They worked through the full four-day weekend, when most of the neighbouring jewellery businesses were shut.

In January 1950 an armed gang took 2.775 million dollars from a security company's building in the North End of Boston. Whose premises were robbed?

The haul was made up of about 1.2 million in cash and a further 1.55 million in cheques, money orders and securities.