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 night, they've managed to steal $70 million worth of Brazilian reais (ray-eyes), nearly double of what they planned. But as they say, more money, more problems, as the gang falls victim to a different kind of heist from an unlikely perpetrator.

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 robbery – by its first outlaw gang.

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. When she puts the necklace in her bag, it's the last the jewelers ever see of it, and payment never comes. This is the affair of the queen's stolen necklace.

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 taken to shore and tossed into the bed of a truck with another turtle. Hours later, he's dumped into a pond and comes face to face with more of his kind. They're fenced in and far from home. All he can do is wait for dinner, and he's on the menu.

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 window and break the art into pieces, prying it apart. Shortly after they flee, the police arrive, only to be met with tire tracks, a flooded palace, and a hole where an 18-karat gold toilet worth $6M should be.

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 woman scrambles into the house to investigate the broken glass. She is immediately faced with an empty pillar and a lone red sequin. The Ruby Slippers have been stolen.

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 silence. And $3.5 million worth of centuries old, extremely rare, and very expensive, - not jewels, not art, but books.

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 ladder with their new souvenirs and vanish into the night. Police answer the alarm within the hour, but it's no use. $12 million dollars worth of art - gone without a trace.

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 object and drags it across the chapel floor, and into the snowy morning.

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 fine… except one beloved aquatic resident named Miss Helen… is gone!