Heist Club

It's Saturday night in Fortaleza, Brazil, and as usual the popular tourist destination is bustling with night life. That energy extends beneath the surface where a group of men crawl through a tunnel of their own making. Their destination? The vault underneath Brazil's Central Bank. In conveyor belt fashion, they shuffle box after box down the line and into their safe house. At the end of the nigh...

On a fall evening in 1866, three men hop on a steam train just as it leaves the depot. But they're not your average passengers – and they're not here for a ride. Their destination? The express delivery car. They open the door, Colt 45s in hand. The stunned guard follows their orders. The thieves grab the loot and leap off the locomotive with $10,000 in gold. Welcome to America's first train robber...

On a February evening in 1785 Paris, an intermediary for Queen Marie Antoinette enters a famous jewelry shop to secure a diamond necklace for the royal: the most expensive in history. She has been sent on strict instructions to keep the transaction secret, lest the king find out. The intermediary leaves as quick as she came, with a promise that the queen will start sending payments come summertime...

It's a spring morning in a Texas swamp where an elusive alligator snapping turtle hunts for his meal. He spots some meat floating right in front of his face and chomps down. Instead of a delicious meal he feels the sharp sting of a hook; and now there are hands on his shell. He wriggles and thrashes against his attackers as they hoist him into a johnboat and manhandle him into a mesh bag. He's tak...

On a September evening in 2019, a party rages on in Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill. Partygoers celebrate the arrival of an acclaimed, and strange, art piece. Each guest gets personal quality time with the work. But alas, the party must end. A couple hours later, two cars rip across the courtyard. 4 men leap out, armed with sledgehammers, crowbars, and wrenches. They smash a w...

In the dead of night in a little Minnesota town, a car parks in front of a small house, a relic of the early 20th century. A shadowy figure, armed with a sledgehammer, charges the house, smashing the glass door. Less than a minute later, he emerges, carrying a secret package which occasionally glitters under the moonlight. The car speeds off with a job well done. The following morning, a horrified...

On Monday, January 30, 2017, just after 9 PM, a blue hatchback rolls up to a London warehouse. Two men slip out. They carry almost nothing - just rope, some sharp tools, and nerves of steel. They slice through the fence. There's a 40-foot wall and no ladder. They climb a drainpipe. On the roof, they expertly slice the skylight, and rappel down into the dark. All that await them are crates and sile...

On a cool, spring night in London, the centuries-old Christ Church Picture Gallery sits in total and eerie quiet. No guards, just moonlight gleaming over the masterpieces. But then... A skylight shatters... A ladder drops in. Multiple figures descend into the darkness, and within minutes, they pluck 3 paintings from their frames like they have done this one hundred times before. They ascend the la...

It's nearly 6 AM on Christmas Day in London in 1950. A young man runs into the famed Westminster Abbey, looking a bit frantic and disheveled. He drops to his hands and knees feeling around for something in the darkness. Miraculously, he accidentally kicks the small object, his car keys. He sprints out of the abbey and returns just minutes later. He grabs the ends of a cloth wrapped around a large...

It's July 28, 2018 at the San Antonio Aquarium. With school out for the summer, the aquarium is bustling with families. It's a seemingly normal day, until an employee spies something fishy: two men exiting a restricted area, pushing a baby stroller that's leaking water! Suddenly, alarms are blaring – the water is contaminated with bleach! Employees rush to solve the problem and everything seems fi...

On the sweltering afternoon of August 22, 1972, three sharply dressed men entered a Chase Manhattan Bank branch in Brooklyn. They hand the teller a note plagiarized from the movie they watched earlier that day, and reveal their shotguns. What unfolds is an insane 14 hour standoff that captures the attention of all New York City. No this isn't a recap of the 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon, it's the re...

It's the first day of the festival of the holidays in Walt Disney World's EPCOT Park. The food demonstration space is packed with guests all enjoying the festivities, when a project coordinator walks to the back of the room and through an inconspicuous door. He makes his way through a place frozen in time. He wanders further back to a theater, where a loveable animatronic would greet him. But in i...

On a rainy summer night in 1899, a railroad engineer powers a locomotive carrying passengers, mail, and other wares through the Wyoming prairie. Through the darkness, he spots two lanterns signaling an emergency stop. He breaks just in time. Instead of helpful railworkers, two masked men reveal pistols and announce that he is being robbed. Even more men board the train and after two hours of chaos...

It's October 29,1964 and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City is closed for the night. In the darkness of night, the city lights stream through the window, gently illuminating exhibits, including… The JP Morgan Hall of Gems and Minerals. Then, a foot pokes through an open window. Two men slide down a rope and tiptoe through the room. They cut into the glass casings protecting th...

On a November evening in 1955 in Argentina, an embalmer works on his most important project: the first lady of the nation. After nearly two years of operating in secret, he hopes the rival party will stay ignorant of his magnum opus. But that night, 20 soldiers burst through the door and drag the body into the night. They have just taken his Evita.

Todd and Jesse have a quick chat with the winner of the Heist Club Cash Grab! 

On a Monday morning in Nice, France, customers at a bank grow agitated as they wait to make their deposits. The short line grows into a small crowd. The vault door is stuck. And as the hours tick by, the door won't budge. Not even the manufacturer can get it open. In the end, frustrated employees take a jackhammer to the wall and make a hole big enough to peek through. Instead of neatly sealed dep...

On this week's Heist Club, we return to Harvey's Casino. We left off on an explosive moment. The FBI will use a strategically placed C4 charge to try and short out the circuit of the bomb and stop its detonation, but it does not go as planned. 

It's late August in Lake Tahoe in 1980, and crowds of tourists flood the casinos that mark the border between Nevada and California. One such casino is Harvey's Casino and Resort Hotel, the stateline's oldest gambling establishment. And just as the sun peaks out over the horizon a white van pulls up to the casino's delivery port. Then, two men in matching white jump suits unload a massive item hid...

On the night of August 14th, 1775, two dozen men sneak through the streets of St. George's in Bermuda, right under the British governor's nose. Only guided by moonlight, they trek to the top of a hill and face a stone building. Carefully and quietly, they chisel their way through the roof and send a man inside. What waits for him is over 3,000 pounds of gunpowder. They carry the barrels out to sea...

It's Memorial Day 2025 and employees at Dr. Conkey's Candy and Coffee in Simi Valley, California open the shop for the holiday. They are immediately met with disarray. There is paint splashed over the cameras, entire shelves are toppled over, and the safe is open. Strangely, there is also a hole in the wall leading to the business next door, 5 Star Jewelry and Watch Repair. The jewelry store owner...

It's the Wednesday after Easter weekend 1976 in Melbourne, Australia, and a good chunk of the city spent the weekend at the racetrack. Bookies handled swarms of people placing bets and left with a record breaking payload by the end of the melee. Now counting their winnings at the Victoria Club, they hear a bang, and six men wielding World War 2 era machine guns swarm the bookies and take their ent...

Shortly after 1 AM on February 22, 2006, an employee at the Bank of England's cash depot in Kent sees his boss on the exterior cameras asking to be let in. Strange, because he clocked out at 5:30 the evening before and wasn't expected until the morning. But, there's a police officer with him so it must be important. He buzzes them in and the second the door opens, the policeman draws his weapon. O...

It's a spring morning in a Texas swamp where an elusive alligator snapping turtle hunts for his meal. He spots some meat floating right in front of his face and chomps down. Instead of a delicious meal he feels the sharp sting of a hook; and now there are hands on his shell. He wriggles and thrashes against his attackers as they hoist him into a johnboat and manhandle him into a mesh bag. He's tak...

It's a beautiful Sunday morning in Oslo as visitors enter the Munch Museum, home to the acclaimed artist's paintings. But shortly after 11 AM two armed men crash through the doors and order everyone to the ground. They run around the gallery until they reach their destination: The Scream. After one, two, three tugs, they rip the iconic painting from the wall. On their way out, they rip down a seco...