True Crime Robberies

On May 3, 2010, an Irish national named Jeffrey Lendrum was apprehended at Britain’s Birmingham International Airport with a suspicious parcel strapped to his stomach. Inside were 14 rare peregrine falcon eggs snatched from a remote cliffside in Wales. So begins a tale almost too bizarre to believe, following the parallel lives of a globe-trotting smuggler who spent two decades capturing endangered raptors worth millions of dollars as race champions - and Detective Andy McWilliam, who’s hell bent on protecting the world’s birds of prey.

Fighting Crime in the Largest City West of the Mississippi Famous robbers. A Trunk Murder. The deadliest incident in St. Louis Police history. This book covers some of the most significant crimes affecting the city from 1860 to 1909, when it was the largest city west of the Mississippi River. These true stories are stranger than fiction.

Absinthe, an elixir made of alcohol and herbs, is a booming business. Yet it is still an underground culture, associated with mystery, romance, and bohemian lifestyles, in keeping with its popularity among the writers, artists, and other ne'er-do-wells. First produced in eighteenth century, the spirit, known as "the Green Fairy," was banned worldwide by 1914 before the bans were gradually overturned beginning in 2005, the year Switzerland relegalized absinthe.

Do you like true crime stories? Public Enemies – True Crime Gangster Stories from the Roaring Twenties From the era of gangsters, molls and prohibition, almost (but not quite), lost in the mists of time, these tales romp along with plenty of action and recreate the atmosphere of this exciting and dangerous era using the vernacular of the times. You’ll have heard of most of these notorious criminals, but possibly not so much about one or two of them. All of them were real, ruthless hoodlums, and all had their "15 minutes of fame", leaving trails of death and mayhem behind them. Most did ...

Growing up during the Depression in the segregated coal town of Slab Fork, West Virginia, Doris Payne was told her dreams were unattainable for poor Black girls like her. Surrounded by people who sought to limit her potential, Doris vowed to turn the tables after the owner of a jewelry store threw her out when a White customer arrived. Neither racism nor poverty would hold her back; she would get what she wanted and help her mother escape an abusive relationship.

As a string of high-profile jewel thefts went unsolved during the Swinging Sixties, the press dubbed the elusive thief the King of Diamonds. Like Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief, the King was so bold that he tip-toed into the homes of millionaires while they were home, hiding in their closets and daring to smoke while they were sleeping. Rena Pederson, then a young reporter with UPI, started following the elusive thief while she managed the night desk. With gymnastic skill, he climbed trees and crawled across rooftops to take jewels from heiresses, oil kings, corporate CEOs.

On a Sunday evening in December 2004, two young men were at home with their families. Both worked for the Northern Bank’s cash centre in Belfast. They heard knocks on their front doors. Within a few minutes, masked men invaded their homes, overpowered their loved ones and disabled their electronic devices. It was made clear to the two bank officials that they had a choice: do what they were told or their families would die. In the wake of the twentieth anniversary of this bizarre robbery, Glenn Patterson builds on his popular BBC podcast to shed new light on the story of the infamous heist.

Unwanted and neglected from birth, Barbara Graham had to overcome the odds just to survive. Her beauty was both a blessing and a curse—offering her too many options of all the wrong kind. Her innate sensitivity left her vulnerable to the harsh realities of the street, where she was left to fend for herself before she reached double digits. Her record of petty crimes spoke to a life that constantly teetered on the brink of disaster. But in 1953, a catastrophic twist of fate would catapult her out of obscurity and into the headlines.

One hot Monday morning in 1976, Albert Spaggiari engineered the European crime of the century. A bank president in Nice, France found his vault welded shut—from the inside. Spaggiari and his gang of 20 men had dug a 25-foot tunnel from the city's sewer system into the bank, where they spent a weekend cooking meals, drinking wine, and clearing millions of dollars in gold, jewelry, gems, and cash. Here is the breathtakingly compelling story of Spaggiari, his “sewer gang,” and the most daring, outrageous theft of the 20th century.

The Street Agent chronicles cases in which Manis served as the case agent, immersing listeners in the high-stakes chases, shootouts, and undercover operations he led. Events are recounted through his eyes as they unfolded with terrorists, Klansmen, mobsters, and murderers. Now free to tell his story, Manis offers an unfiltered view of an FBI that demands absolute courage and unyielding dedication at street level.

Beneath the gloss of star chefs and crystal-laden tables, the truffle supply chain is touched by theft, secrecy, sabotage, and fraud. Farmers patrol their fields with rifles and fear losing trade secrets to spies. Hunters plant poisoned meatballs to eliminate rival truffle-hunting dogs. Naive buyers and even experts are duped by liars and counterfeits. Deeply reported and elegantly written, this exposé documents the dark, sometimes deadly crimes at each level of the truffle’s path from ground to plate, making sense of an industry that traffics in scarcity, seduction, and cash.

Texas Crime Stories: Riding Herd on the Lawless is an unflinching exploration of the most perplexing and chilling crimes that have scarred the vast landscape of the Lone Star State. In this gripping anthology, Peabody Award-winning investigative reporter Robert Riggs takes listeners on a journey through the dark underbelly of Texas, where the shadows of oil, cowboys, and cattle loom large, but the specter of crime looms even larger.

Shotguns and Stagecoaches tells the true stories of the Wild West heroes who guarded the iconic Wells Fargo stagecoaches and trains, battling colorful thieves, vicious highwaymen, and robbers armed with explosives....

A ghost story with a true crime twist. Based on the largest, unsolved art heist in history, GHOST AT THE GARDNER is a gripping, paranormal suspense mystery with a bit of added romance. Supernatural occurrences unfold as an old museum ghost and a young art intern team up to solve an investigation that has remained an FBI cold case for over 20 years. Readers won’t be able to put down this fast-paced novel full of ghostly spirits, mystical séances and first kisses in a spooky graveyard.

Malcolm Macarthur was a well-known Dublin socialite. Suave and urbane, he passed his days mingling with artists and aristocrats, reading philosophy, living a life of the mind. But by 1982, his inheritance had dwindled to almost nothing, a desperate threat to his lifestyle. Macarthur hastily conceived a plan: He would commit bank robbery, of the kind that had become frightfully common in Dublin at the time. But his plan spun swiftly out of control, and he needlessly killed two innocent civilians.

When he retired as the chief security officer of New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art, John Barelli had spent the better part of 40 years responsible not only for one of the richest treasure troves on the planet, but the museum's staff, the millions of visitors, as well as American presidents, royalty, and heads of state from around the world. For the first time, John Barelli shares his experiences of the crimes that occurred on his watch, the investigations that captured thieves and recovered artwork....

Today, art theft is one of the most profitable criminal enterprises in the world, exceeding $6 billion in losses to galleries and art collectors annually. And the masterpieces of Rembrandt van Rijn are some of the most frequently targeted. In Stealing Rembrandts, art security expert Anthony M. Amore and award-winning investigative reporter Tom Mashberg reveal the actors behind the major Rembrandt heists in the last century. Through thefts around the world—from Stockholm to Boston, Worcester to Ohio—the authors track daring entries and escapes from the world's most renowned museums.

The extraordinary life and crimes of heiress-turned-revolutionary, who in 1974 became the only woman to pull off a major art heist, The Woman Who Stole Vermeer is Rose Dugdale’s story, from her idyllic upbringing in Devonshire and her presentation to Elizabeth II as a debutante to her university years and her eventual radical lifestyle.

It was the most audacious crime of the 1970’s; a gang of villains tunnelled their way into the safety deposit box vault of Lloyds Bank on Baker Street, London. The ‘walkie-talkie’ robbery (as it became known) was later immortalised in the hit 2008 film ‘The Bank Job’ starring Jason Statham. Dan Shaw, Author of ‘The Krays: Their Life and Crimes’ and ‘The Great Train Robbery’ presents the explosive true account of one of the most daring and ingenious heists in British criminal history. It’s a story packed with suspense and intrigue, near misses, and edge of the seat plot ...

Who captured members of the Wild Bunch? Solved a nationally known 1893 train robbery? Who helped capture H.H. Holmes, America's first serial killer? Chief William Desmond commanded the largest detective force west of the Mississippi River. The St. Louis Chief of Detectives from 1890 to 1907 personally solved hundreds of crimes and protected fair goers during St. Louis' 1904 World's Fair. Learn the true story of one of America's greatest detectives.