The jewelry stolen by Jack McLean over several years of thieving was worth $133 million. It was not for nothing that McLean was nicknamed the Super Thief - he had perfectly mastered the art of breaking into and covering his tracks. There are, of course, few such master thieves, but there are certainly more than the police catch—many of them escape punishment and remain forever in the shadows. Some are driven by a desire for adventure, others take revenge on society, and others want to prove something to themselves. Although the main driver, of course, is the thirst for profit.

Charlie Pease could have been an excellent violinist, but he preferred a pick to a bow.
Photo: wikipedia.org

KIRILL NOVIKOV

New Paganini

In most world cultures, it is believed that taking someone else’s property is not good, and the attitude towards people who have made the appropriation of other people’s property their profession is appropriate. And yet, at different times and in different countries there were thieves who managed to elevate their shameful craft to the rank of art and thereby achieve the respect of others. Legends about talented and successful thieves come to us from time immemorial. Thus, it is known that in the medieval Islamic world there was a secret society "Banu Sasan", whose members passed on the secrets of thieves' skills from generation to generation. They wandered across the territory from Spain to Central Asia and everywhere they found a way to make money in the richest and most well-guarded houses.

These professionals knew many tricks and developed their own unique style of infiltration. When going out to work, members of Banu Sasan took with them a seemingly strange arsenal: bags of sand and beans, a stick, a piece of cloth, a small candle, a live turtle. To get into the house, they usually made a hole in the wall or dug a tunnel using a set of metal tools. When the hole was ready, the thief tied a folded cloth to a stick and pushed it into the hole. This was done in order to understand whether a guard with a scimitar was waiting on the other side for uninvited guests. If no one chopped the stick, the thief lit a candle, attached it to the turtle's back and let the reptile into the hole. The turtle crawled, illuminating the room, so that one could finally make sure that there was no ambush. Having made his way into the house, the thief scattered sand. If someone in the house was sleeping too lightly, the sound of falling sand would wake him up, and the criminal would escape in time. If someone started walking around the house while the thief was busy with his business, the sand crunched underfoot, and the attacker had time to hide or hide again. If the opening of the next chest was accompanied by too much noise, beans were used. The burglar sprinkled them on the floor, so that the awakened owners might think that the cat was chasing mice in the pantry and knocking something over along the way.

The origin of Banu Sasan is shrouded in mystery. According to one legend, the society was founded by the Persian sheikh Sasan, who was unjustly deprived of his inheritance. According to another version, the origins were the Sassanids - descendants of the pre-Islamic Persian dynasty overthrown by the Arabs. In both cases we are talking about certain Persian aristocrats who suddenly lost their place in society. The life stories of famous thieves of subsequent eras indicate that the legends about the mysterious Prince of Persia, who took a slippery slope, are quite plausible. Skilled burglars for the most part were born into decent families, were surrounded by love in childhood and even received some education. However, then their worldview was transformed. Some faced injustice, but the majority simply did not want to accept their humble lot in the world of wealth inequality. And then the household princes and princesses used all their ingenuity to change the situation in their favor.

The most famous burglar of the 19th century also did not belong to the aristocracy. Charles Joseph Pease was born in 1832 into the family of a shoemaker in Sheffield, England. However, his father John Pease was a rather unusual person. At one time, John was a miner, but as a result of an accident he lost his leg and took on a safer job - he became a lion tamer in a circus. Having saved up money, he bought a shoe shop and settled in Sheffield. John taught his son to get along with animals, make various crafts and perform acrobatic acts. The first was not very useful to Charles, because he did not use turtles in his business. But two other skills came in handy. In addition, Charlie Pease was short, which made him an ideal candidate for the role of a window operator. However, at the dawn of his life he did not even think about crime.

Doris Payne portrayed a society lady so convincingly that jewelers themselves brought her the diamonds that she was going to steal
Photo: AP

At school, little Charlie loved to entertain his peers with all sorts of tricks, and also trained cats, but his parents did not want him to become a circus performer. At age 13, Charlie was sent to work in a factory. It was then that an incident occurred that turned his whole life upside down. In 1846, his leg was pierced by a hot iron rod, and Charlie was forever left lame. After 18 months in hospital, he found that no employer wanted to do business with him. He tried to perform at fairs with his tricks, but the earnings were meager. Charlie independently learned to play the violin and some other instruments and, according to his contemporaries, became a very good musician. His signature number was playing the violin with a single string, for which he was called the new Paganini. He played in pubs, but there was still not enough money. The contrast between a relatively prosperous existence in his parents' home and complete poverty turned out to be too strong, and Charlie decided to correct the situation at any cost.

The first time Charlie Pease was caught stealing in 1851, he only served a month in prison. He was caught the second time in 1854 and was sent to prison for four years. Charlie Pease's first thefts were not highly professional, so he ended up in prison quite often, but Charlie learned from his mistakes. So, after a long series of successful thefts, he decided that he didn’t care and went into business drunk. The case ended with another prison term, and Pease swore off drinking before the theft. His skill gradually reached extraordinary heights. He invented many ingenious devices for quietly entering houses and he himself learned to move completely silently. He usually climbed into the house at night, but managed not to wake anyone. One day, however, the owner of the house woke up and went to the kitchen to see what was the matter. The short, nimble Piz ducked under the table and went unnoticed.

Charlie Pease was killed by passion. In 1875, after serving another sentence, the now middle-aged recidivist decided to quit. He had a wife and children and decided to live peacefully in Sheffield. And then Charlie met Catherine Dyson, the wife of railway engineer Arthur Dyson. The thief fell madly in love with her, and Catherine reciprocated his feelings. To live a double life, Pease took up crime again and once shot and killed a policeman who was trying to detain him. Soon Katherine decided to break up with him, and Charlie, in a fit of jealousy, shot her husband too. After this, Charlie Pease went on the run. It was then that he had to bring all his criminal skills to perfection.

Bill Mason led a double life, bypassed triple security and captured multimillion-dollar loot
Photo: EASTNEWS

The police released a detailed orientation, which made it impossible not to catch the man: “Height five feet four inches, gray (almost white) hair, beard and sideburns. Cannot move three fingers on his left hand, walks with his legs wide apart, speaks strangely, as if he the tongue is too big and hardly fits in the mouth." But Pease by that time knew how to masterfully change his appearance. He covered his skin with homemade cream to make himself darker, and perfectly learned to look older than his years, so that on different occasions he was mistaken for a forty-year-old, or for a seventy-year-old. One day, Charlie Pease accidentally shot off his finger and, to hide the injury, made a fake prosthetic with a hook. He often had to transform himself to escape pursuit. For example, one day he ran into the school grounds and, posing as an actor hired by the management, read Shakespeare to the children until the raid was over.

While on the run, Pease continued to steal and managed to accumulate good capital. At the beginning of 1877, he rented a modest house in London and lived there with a new mistress. Charlie posed as a successful dealer in musical instruments and led a quiet lifestyle. He often played music, delighting his neighbors with his skillful playing and pleasant singing, and had several pets. And at night he went to steal, almost every night. His favorite subjects were rich houses in the southern suburbs of London. In almost every mansion he entered, Charlie stole some kind of musical instrument for his collection. This continued until October 10, 1878, when patrol constables caught him red-handed. Pease gave himself a false name, but his lover, flattered by the £100 promised for information that would allow him to catch the criminal, told him his real name. Charlie Pease was convicted of two murders and hanged. The country's attorney general, the Earl of Birkenhead, expressed the general opinion of his contemporaries about this strange man, writing that Pease was “a curious mixture of the most vile villainy and artistic taste.”

Armand Hammer was ready to be friends with communist leaders for the sake of profit, and Bill Mason was ready to climb a sheer wall for the sake of his wife’s jewelry
Photo: RGAKFD/Rosinform, Kommersant

"It's an amazing feeling!"

The great thieves of the twentieth century were in many ways a match for Charlie Pease. All of them were excellent actors, many had good taste, and almost everyone in their youth was faced with manifestations of social inequality. And everyone’s fortunes turned away at some point.

Doris Payne was born in 1930 in the American town of Slab Fork (West Virginia). Doris was the sixth child in the family, her parents doted on her. The Paynes were black and relatively poor, but they did not know poverty. Doris's father, a miner, earned good money, his mother, a seamstress, also contributed to the family budget, and Doris, in turn, was pleased with her success at school. One day, the mother sent the girl to Bill Benjamin's store to repay a small debt. Bill had always been good to Doris, and when she boasted that her mother would buy her a watch if she studied well, he allowed her to try on a watch from the window. At that moment a white customer entered the store, and suddenly Mr. Benjamin changed. The merchant was afraid to show the client that he was treating the black girl well, and threw her out. Doris ran away, forgetting to take off her watch. Soon she returned to give them, but this incident was firmly stuck in her head.

As a teenager, Doris Payne came up with an exciting game for herself. She came with a friend to some store, started trying on watches and at the same time chatted incessantly. She later recalled: “I just tried to make the seller forget how many I tried on. I always managed to leave one watch on my wrist.” At the end of the day, Doris seemed to come to her senses and returned the watch, but made it clear to the seller that she could steal it if she wanted. She gave birth at age 18 and needed money to raise her son. Since then, the watch that was on her hand has not been returned to the sellers.

At the age of 23, Doris Payne decided to play big. By that time, she had acquired good clothes and learned to behave like a rich lady. Doris arrived in Pittsburgh, went into a jewelry store and came out with a ring that cost $22 thousand. The girl had no idea how to sell the stolen goods, so she went to the nearest pawn shop and asked for $7.5 thousand for the diamond jewelry. The owner took the ring no questions asked. Now Doris Payne knew how to earn a living for herself and her child.

Jack McLean enjoyed his fame as a super thief until the police proved that he was also a super rapist.
Photo: Time Life Pictures/Getty Images/Fotobank

Doris settled in Bedford, Ohio. She subscribed to fashion magazines and catalogs of jewelry companies, and when she liked some precious thing in some store, she simply bought a plane ticket and went to get it. In the early 1970s, jewelers realized what was happening. An organization called the Jewelry Security Alliance sent out tips on Doris Payne to all major stores in the country, but she continued to disarm salespeople with her charm and steal jewelry. In the 1970s, Doris went on tour abroad for the first time. Paris, Monte Carlo - she appeared wherever a rich American tourist could take her, and did not return without booty.

In 1974, Doris Payne was actually captured in Nice in connection with the theft of a platinum ring set with a diamond from a Cartier store. Doris was placed under arrest at the hotel, but she picked out the stone and sewed it into her belt. Sometimes she did get caught for real, the case went to court, but she did not receive long sentences, since she never stole more than one or two items at a time. Doris rewinded her longest sentence ten years ago - in 1998 she was sentenced to almost five years. But her career did not end there. The last time Doris Payne was caught was January 22, 2010. An 80-year-old woman was given an "A" for stealing another diamond ring. Payne is still sitting.

If Doris Payne relied on her charm and sleight of hand, Bill Mason relied more on physical strength and endurance. Mason was born in 1940 into a working-class family, but studied at one of the best schools in Cleveland, where the scions of many wealthy families attended. From his youth he communicated with golden youth. Bill was accepted in all the elite parties of the city, because he was a nice guy, but at the same time he always remained in the position of a poor relative, which categorically did not suit him. Mason began to train - persistently climbing the rope until he learned to quickly climb up and down without the help of his legs. Soon he began to put his acquired skills into practice. Bill was climbing the side of a skyscraper to get into the apartment of one rich celebrity or another. He later admitted: “At a height of twenty floors, people feel safe, which is why I so often entered open doors and found unlocked safes. All you need is brains and strong hands.”

Intellectual thief Gerald Blanchard could have grabbed stars from the sky, but he chose to grab the priceless Sisi Star by parachute
Photo: AP

For the first time, Mason was lucky in the apartment of comedian Phyllis Diller - a real warehouse of jewelry was discovered there. From then on, he could no longer help stealing. From the age of 25, Bill Mason led a double life. In one, he was a faithful husband and loving father. Bill was involved in real estate, which allowed him to be well versed in the layout of luxury apartments and mansions, as well as familiarize himself with all the new products on the security systems market. At night he transformed into an acrobat thief. Mason carefully prepared for each operation, studied gossip columns, and, having chosen a victim, went to the end. For example, in order to enter the apartment of the famous millionaire and great friend of the Soviet country Armand Hammer, Mason climbed the wall to the 15th floor in bad weather. He described his nocturnal exploits as follows: “And here you are hanging by your fingers, as if climbing a rock, and in a few minutes you find yourself inside. And there are jewelry! You know they are here, because the lady got a new hairstyle before today's ball... Let me tell you, it's an amazing feeling!"

Sometimes Bill Mason showed something akin to nobility. In 1967, he entered the mansion of Johnny Weissmuller, a five-time Olympic swimming champion who also became famous for his role as Tarzan. Mason grabbed the jewelry, and already at home he found an Olympic medal among the rings and cufflinks. The thief sent the reward to the robbed champion. But much more often, he felt moral satisfaction from social revenge: “You have to admit: those who wear jewelry worth millions of dollars can afford to lose it. Maybe they deceive the insurance companies and still end up winning. I like to leave out such people are a little lower."

Bill Mason's double life lasted 25 years. During this time, his wife gave birth to three children, without even knowing with whom she lived under the same roof. In 1984, the FBI caught the elusive thief, and Mason went to prison for five years. He was released three years later, after which the former thief announced the end of his career and published his memoirs. In them, Bill Mason boasts that he stole $35 million worth of jewelry.

Photo: The Denver Post via Getty Images/Fotobank

Star Sisi

Bill Mason always skillfully bypassed alarms, and yet security systems were not his strong point. Jack McLean, who operated in Florida in the 1970s, achieved true mastery in this matter. McLean never broke locks, but opened them with master keys. He always easily turned off the most complex alarms, and if the security system turned out to be unfamiliar to him, Jack uninstalled and took with him the necessary blocks to study it at his leisure. McLean was always well-equipped, including carrying a police radio on duty to monitor the cops' actions.

Jack McLean stole jewelry without leaving any trace. Often the owners were sure that they simply touched a ring or brooch somewhere, because they did not even realize that a criminal had visited their house. However, sometimes he left mockery notes at the crime scene. For example, having somehow cleaned the mansion next to the house of the police chief, he stuck a message to the car of the police chief: "Glad to see that you are doing your job well."

Jack Maklin admitted that he had abducted jewelry at $ 133 million. One way or another, he lived in a wide leg, he had a luxurious mansion and a personal helicopter. But for many years of impunity, Jack's vigilance dulled. Once he changed his principles and took a partner in the case, who eventually passed him. In 1979, Jack McClin was arrested after he stole Johnson & Johnson from the mansion of the heiress of the Johnson & Johnson at a price of about $ 1 million. Jack sat down for 15 years and wrote memoirs called the Secrets of the Supervore. The romantic fleur around Maklin disappeared only in 2012, when it turned out that he was also a super -nasoper. Using the unique skills of a cracker, Jack McClin penetrated the homes and, threatening with a gun, raped women and minor girls. He was exposed by analysis of DNA, and now the 66-year-old criminal is waiting for a sentence for 36 proven cases of rape.

At the end of the 20th century, security technologies developed rapidly, but thieves did not lag behind from time to time. For example, Canadian Gerald Blanecar became a real master of intellectual hacking thanks to technical knowledge. It all started in 1978 in Winnipeg, when Gerald was only six. The boy lived with his mother, who lacked money even for milk. Gerald choked on dry oat flakes for several days in a row, but once he saw that bottles of milk were delivered to the door of the neighbor. Blancar crept to his house and pulled the bottles. That milk seemed unusually tasty to him, and since then Gerald has not missed the opportunity to steal something.

Safes are reliable until they take specialists of Gerald Blanhara, who is able to collect any disassembled lock in 40 seconds
Photo: Getty Images/Fotobank

At school, Blanchard was obsessed with electronics and soon knew well how to turn off the tracking cameras and alarm. The thefts gave a good income, and at the age of 16 Gerald bought a house for $ 100 thousand. He was twice arrested in the United States, and once he managed to escape from the police station. Having served four years in an American prison, Gerald Blanchar decided to crank up something worthy of his talent, and soon such a case introduced himself.

In 1998, Blancar and his wife and Testem traveled around Europe (apparently, all three were at the same time). In Austria, they visited the Imperial Palace Schenbrunn, where the SISI star attracted their attention-a magnificent brooch with a huge pearl and diamonds, which once belonged to the wife of Franz Joseph I Empress Sisi. All entrances to the museum were well guarded, and the room where the jewel was stored was equipped with a complex signaling system. In particular, the brooch lay on a stand equipped with a weight sensor. Gerald Blanchard captured the entire system on the video camera, and soon he had a plan.

Blancar hired a small plane and at night jumped with a parachute onto the roof of the palace. Having easily broken with the alarm, he penetrated the room and replaced the Sisi Star with a copy of the souvenir shop. Weight sensors did not notice anything, and the museum employees needed several days to understand that the national treasure was stolen.

In 2001, Gerald Blanchard switched to bank storage facilities. Now a whole gang worked for him, but he always played the main role. Blanchard used many cunning devices to get around the alarm, including night vision glasses to detect infrared sensors. In addition, he knew the device of castles that most banks used very well. Once after the arrest, the police gave him one such castle in a disassembled state, and Blanchard gathered him in 40 seconds.

Gerald Blanecar bathed into luxury and enjoyed his illegal work until he came across in 2007. He was threatened with 164 years in prison, but he received only eight years, and he served even less. In 2010, the brilliant thief left prison and, according to unverified data, became a specialist in the field of protective systems. Perhaps justice showed such softness because Blanchard returned the "Sisi" to the Austrian people.

Instead of beans and living turtles, modern thieves use drills, glass cutters, hydraulic jacks and night vision glasses
Photo: DIOMEDIA

Fatal sandwich

At the turn of the millennia, there were no talented thieves less. On the contrary, every now and then it becomes known about the next gifted nugget. For example, the American Blaine Nordal in the 1990s and 2000s made about 150 thefts with a hack and earned great respect for the police with his professionalism. Nordla was nicknamed the silver thief, since he was mostly interested in silver, as well as a star thief, since he preferred to "clean" the houses of celebrities, including Bruce Springstin and Donald Trump. Blaine's father David Nordal was a talented and successful artist and was even considered personal portrait painter Michael Jackson, so the future cracker did not suffer from poverty. But Blaine was tormented by his own unrealism and passionately wanted to prove to others that he was the coolest. As one investigator said, Nordal has a conceit the size of a house. At the same time, the thief was as stunted as Charlie Piz - five feet four inches. The silver thief himself explained his addiction with a thirst for adventure: "It's like a drug. You feel emptiness. Life can be very boring and monotonous, and sometimes you just want something else." The court helped the bored thief to change the situation - now Blaine Nordal is serving an eight -year term.

Similar motives were driven by the Spaniard Ignacio del Rio, who arrived in the United States in the early 2000s in search of fame. Del Rio was born in a wealthy family, but wanted to succeed in California as an actor or martial artist. Its ambitions were not destined to be embodied, and he learned to climb the steep walls, turn off the alarm and break the locks. In the arsenal of the housekeeper there was a place for a drill, nippers, a sledgehammer, a soldering lamp, glass cutter, a hydraulic jack capable of lifting six tons, and many other tools. For 16 months of work in Los Angeles, Del Rio committed more than a thousand thefts, and his catch pulled in the amount of $ 16 million to $ 40 million. Ignasio came across by chance: someone found his cache in which the Rolex watch was found in the amount of 74 pieces, 546 Precious necklaces, $ 250 thousand in cash and many more different valuable things. The cops were ambushed, and Ignacio del Rio was on the dock. In 2005, he was sentenced to seven years.

However, not all stories end in punishment and withdrawal of abducted values. Perhaps the most famous and most technically complex theft over the past ten years was committed on February 15-16, 2003 in the Antwerp Diamond Center. According to the official version, the Italian Leonardo notarbartolo and four of his compatriots penetrated the storehouse, equipped with a ten -stage protection. There were motion sensors, a seismic sensor, heat detector and other devices, and the entrance to the repository protected the lock with a hundred millions of combinations of code numbers. And yet the thieves prevailed. The movement sensor was disabled, pouring it with a silicone spray, and the light sensors were sealed with tape. How they selected the code is still unknown. The abductors carried out $ 118 million from the storage of diamonds and other values.

Notarbartolo was calculated by DNA, remaining on the bounced sandwich found in the storage. The kidnapper got into prison, but was released in 2009 conventionally, and in February 2013 he was again arrested for violating the rules of liberation. They never found diamonds. Perhaps brilliant Italian crackers are still walking at large, if they ever existed. According to one version, the storage was generally impossible to rob people from the side, and one of the insiders cleaned it. This someone put the bite notarbartolo a sandwich, and he either turned out to be a pawn in someone else's game, or voluntarily agreed to work as a zits-chairman. One way or another, the Antwerp affair inspires hope in the hearts of many potential thieves: it turns out that you can commit perfect theft and remain unpunished.

The case of super thieves