Throughout history, every society has had to contend with those who would try to acquire possessions through thievery. Most robbers work in secret but there have been some robberies that garnered a great deal of attention and will be remembered for many years to come. Today you can learn about a wide range of famous burglaries from robberies of national banks to Sloto Cash casino burglary-themed slots.
Brazil Banco Central Burglary
In 2005 a gang of robbers rented a commercial property in the middle of Fortaleza, Brazil. They posed as landscapers and over the course of three months they dug a 256-foot tunnel beneath two city blocks until they were positioned right below the Banco Central.
Over a weekend, when the bank was closed, they tunneled upward and broke through the reinforced concrete and entered the bank’s vault after evading and disabling the bank's internal sensors and alarms. They made off with 3.5 tons of Brazilian real notes (about R$160 million), most of which has never been found.
UK Royal Mail Train Robbery
The robbery of the Royal Mail Train, which was robbed while on route from Glasgow to London, has been dubbed the Great Train Robbery and has been the subject of articles, books and films. The train was traveling on the West Coast Main Line in August 1963 when a gang attacked the train after tampering with lineside signals and bringing the train to a halt near Buckinghamshire.
Thanks to inside information the gang of 15 the gang was able to target the second carriage which contained large quantities of money. There was an unusually large amount of money in the High Value Property carriage that day because the previous weekend had been a Bank Holiday weekend in the UK and the carriage carried between £2.5 and £3 million. The “insider” was able to tell the gang that on that day, the train’s High Value carriage would be a reserved on and as such, would not feature the kinds of alarms, bars and bolts that HVP carriages usually have.
The gang escaped with all the money in the HVP carriage. Most of the gang members were eventually caught and sentenced to lengthy prison sentences but most of the money was never recovered
London Knightsbridge Vault Robbery
In 1987 £62 million ($97 million) was stolden from the London Knightsbridge Vault by Italian playboy Valerio Viccei who was implicated in more than 50 other bank robberies during his lifetime. Viccei gained entry to the bank during business hours under the pretense that he wanted to open a safety deposit box.
Once inside, he and an armed accomplice subdued the bank staff and security guards. They then let in more accomplices who busted open the vault. The gang left with at least £62 in jewels, cash and other valuables. Viccei was able to flee to South America but when he returned to the UK to ship his Ferrari to his new home, he was arrested.
SWIFT Online Robbery
In 2016, thieves proved that you don’t have to step inside a bank to conduct an effective robbery. In that year hackers broke into the SWIFT system which is an international banking system that allows banks around the world to transfer money from one account to another.
The hackers made fake requests to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, asking that $1 billion be transferred from the Central Bank of Bangladesh to accounts in Sri Lanka and the Philippines. The hackers were able to get their virtual hands on $81 million but authorities were able to stop the rest from being transferred.
Once the Bangladesh Bank realized what was going on they requested SWIFT to stop the payment and refund the funds that had been transferred. But a withdrawal of approximately $58.15 million had already been processed in the Philippines. The Governor of the Bangladesh Bank requested the Philippines’ help in recovering the money but to date, that has not happened.
Cash Bandits Slots
If you want to experiment with a little banditry of your own, play Cash Bandits Slots at the online casino. Cash Bandits takes you on an adventure of fun and excitement as the bandits use tech wizardry to remove valuables from bank vaults.
Game symbols include megaphones, guns, handcuffs, racing police cars, cops donuts and four bank vaults which are bursting with wealth and riches. If you stick around long enough to enter the Wild Safes bonus game you have the chance to unlock the vaults and win up to 90 free spins with multipliers.
Cash Bandits is a good game for high rollers and low-budget players alike. Bets start at 0.25 coins and go up to 6.25 coins per spin. All in all, it’s an affordable slot with good-sized cash rewards for those who can put themselves in the bandits’ shoes and think creatively.
Payouts include 250 coins for a combination of gun symbols, 500 coins for combinations of getaway cars and sirens and 800 coins for making a match of a band of robbers. Top payouts are 1,250 coins for matching cops and 1,500 coins for combinations that show the robbers as they break into the vault.
The scatter symbol is the Cops and Robbers icon. If you spin five scatters on a regular game spin you’ll get x200 of your total bet. For three scatters, you’ll earn the scatter combination payout plus a chance to open the Vault Feature and spin 5 times for free. All wins that come on a free spin are doubled.
In the Vault Feature you’ll find digital keypads. Crack the code on the first keypad and collect an additional 5 free spins with a triple payout. Crack the code on the 2nd keypad and collect 10 free games with a 4x payout. When you crack the code on the third digital keypad you’ll be given 20 free games with a 5x multiplier. Digital keypad #4 delivers 50 free spins with a 6x multiplier when you crack its code.
