Famous Heists
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96 free Famous Heists trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
11 free Famous Heists trivia questions with answers. Think you know about history's most notorious heists? Test your knowledge with our Famous Heists trivia quiz featuring 5 challenging questions about the world's greatest robberies and art thefts. From museum heists to bank robberies, discover how much you really know about these legendary crimes.
30 of 96 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which country's central bank lost $81 million to hackers' fraudulent SWIFT transfers in February 2016?
Bangladesh
Bangladesh Bank's account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was drained of $81 million in February 2016; the money was laundered through Philippine casinos, and a spelling error blocked a further $20 million.
Q 02What filled the 120 mail bags the Great Train Robbery gang carried off from the Royal Mail train in 1963?
Banknotes
Banknotes, mostly £1 and £5 notes, filled the 120 bags; the train was carrying far more cash than usual because a bank holiday weekend had just ended.
Q 03What was the approximate value of the haul taken in the Great Train Robbery?
£2.6 million
£2.6 million was the haul; the gang drove it to a farm hideout and shared it out there.
Q 04Which of these criminals was one of the 15-strong gang behind the 1963 Great Train Robbery?
Ronnie Biggs
Ronnie Biggs escaped from Wandsworth Prison in 1965 by scaling the wall on a rope ladder, then lived as a fugitive for 36 years before returning to Britain in 2001.
Q 05How did the Great Train Robbery gang bring the Royal Mail train to a halt in 1963?
A rigged red signal
A rigged red signal: the gang covered the green light with a glove and lit the red one from a battery, and the train's fireman was seized when he climbed down to investigate.
Q 06Which French city's Société Générale vault did Albert Spaggiari's gang enter through the sewers in 1976?
Nice
Nice: over a July weekend in 1976 Spaggiari's team tunnelled from the city sewers into the Société Générale vault, emptied safe-deposit boxes and left a wall message boasting of no weapons, hatred or violence.
Q 07At which airport did thieves in a stolen airline van hijack an armoured truck's diamond cargo in February 2005?
Amsterdam Schiphol
Amsterdam Schiphol: the gang used a stolen KLM van to get airside, then drove off in the armoured truck carrying the stones, one of the largest diamond robberies on record.
Q 08Which city's Diamond Centre did Leonardo Notarbartolo empty in February 2003, after renting an office above the vault?
Antwerp
Antwerp: Notarbartolo had posed as a gem importer for more than two years, and his rented office in the Diamond Centre came with a tenant's pass and his own box in the vault.
Q 09Which Louvre painting did former museum worker Vincenzo Peruggia steal in 1911 and hide for over two years?
Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa: Peruggia kept the panel in a trunk in his Paris lodgings, and the worldwide hunt for it helped turn an admired Leonardo into the most famous painting on earth.
Q 10Which jeweller's Paris boutique lost more than €80 million to armed robbers in December 2008?
Harry Winston
Harry Winston's Avenue Montaigne boutique was raided just before closing by armed men, some disguised in wigs and women's clothes, who left with rings, necklaces and watches.
Q 11Which Irish mansion housing the Beit collection was robbed of paintings in 1974 and 1986?
Russborough House
Russborough House in County Wicklow was raided by an IRA gang including heiress Rose Dugdale in 1974 and by Martin Cahill's gang in 1986; its Vermeer was taken both times and recovered both times.
Q 12The December 1978 Lufthansa heist, dramatised in Goodfellas, took place at which airport?
John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy Airport: the crew drove up to Lufthansa's cargo building before dawn and left with cash and jewels flown in from West Germany, almost none of which was ever recovered.
Q 13Who was the only person ever convicted for the Lufthansa heist?
Louis Werner
Q 21Rumour holds that the 1971 Baker Street vault raid netted compromising photographs of which royal?
Princess Margaret
Princess Margaret: the tale has never been proven, and it lingers partly because many of the police papers on the raid stay closed at the National Archives until 2071.
Q 22Which Kent town's Securitas cash depot was robbed of £53 million in February 2006?
Tonbridge
Tonbridge: the gang kidnapped the depot manager and his family, tricked their way inside and left with almost £53 million in the early hours of 22 February 2006.
Q 23Why did the 2006 Securitas depot robbers leave about £154 million behind?
Their lorry was full
Louis Werner, the Lufthansa cargo agent who tipped off the crew, was the only person convicted; Vincent Asaro, tried for the heist decades later, was acquitted in 2015.
Q 14What clue did investigators find at the Los Angeles depot after the 1997 Dunbar Armored robbery?
A plastic taillight lens
A plastic taillight lens was all the gang left behind; the FBI matched it to a 14-foot U-Haul truck, but it led nowhere for two years.
Q 15How much gold bullion did the 1983 Brink's-Mat robbers find in the warehouse they raided?
Three tonnes
Three tonnes: 6,800 ingots sat in the warehouse waiting to be flown to the Far East, and most of the metal is thought to have been melted down and never recovered.
Q 16What nickname did the press give John Palmer, who melted down Brink's-Mat bullion in his garden?
Goldfinger
Goldfinger was the tag John Palmer earned for smelting the stolen bars; he was acquitted in 1987 after telling the court he had not known where they came from.
Q 17The 2019 Green Vault burglary took place in a museum in which German city?
Dresden
Dresden's Green Vault was hit at dawn on 25 November 2019: a fire at a nearby power box knocked out lights and alarms, and the thieves smashed open a display cabinet of royal jewels.
Q 18The men convicted of the Green Vault burglary belonged to which notorious Berlin crime family?
The Remmo clan
The Remmo clan, an extended Berlin crime family, supplied the five men convicted in May 2023 after a deal that saw much of the loot returned.
Q 19The 1971 Baker Street bank robbery in London was inspired by which Sherlock Holmes story?
The Red-Headed League
The Red-Headed League: as in Conan Doyle's story, the gang took over premises nearby and tunnelled from the basement into the Lloyds Bank vault on Baker Street in September 1971.
Q 20To dig into the Baker Street bank vault, the gang rented what kind of business two doors away?
A leather goods shop
A leather goods shop called Le Sac, two doors from Lloyds Bank, was rented as the front; the gang dug beneath the Chicken Inn restaurant between them to reach the vault.
Their lorry was full: the gang got away with almost £53 million, about half a tonne of notes, and drove it to a farm elsewhere in Kent.
Q 24Which city's Northern Bank lost £26.5m in December 2004, one of the UK's biggest raids?
Belfast
Belfast: the Northern Bank's city-centre cash centre was emptied on 20 December 2004 after two staff members' families were held hostage, a tiger-kidnap raid netting £26.5 million.
Q 25In which country did burglars tunnel from a rented house into a Banco Central vault in August 2005?
Brazil
Brazil: the gang rented a house in Fortaleza in the name of an artificial-turf company and dug into the Banco Central vault over a weekend, so the theft went unnoticed until Monday.
Q 26How is Vincenzo Peruggia said to have got his prize out of the Louvre?
Wrapped in his work smock under his arm
Wrapped in his work smock under his arm is the usual telling: he took the panel out of its frame on a service stair, and a passing plumber, taking him for staff, unlocked the exit door.
Q 27Vincenzo Peruggia was finally arrested in December 1913 in which Italian city?
Florence
Florence: Peruggia offered the painting to the Uffizi through dealer Alfredo Geri and was arrested at his Florence hotel in December 1913.
Q 28How were the two thieves who robbed Boston's Gardner Museum in 1990 disguised?
As police officers
As police officers, they talked their way in, tied up the guards, and spent 81 minutes inside.
Q 29Which Vermeer painting was among the works stolen from the Gardner Museum in 1990?
The Concert
The Concert, which shows a man and two women making music, was lifted out of its frame in the Dutch Room, one of 13 works taken on 18 March 1990.
Q 30The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, stolen in the Gardner heist, is the only seascape by whom?
Rembrandt
Rembrandt painted The Storm on the Sea of Galilee in 1633; it is his only known seascape and was cut from its frame by the Gardner thieves in March 1990.