Original subtitles

A mastermind, unmatched for his sheer brilliance. He's been described as a

criminal genius.

A career criminal in search of the biggest robbery in history.

He always believed that out there somewhere was that one fantastic job,

the really big hit. A man who'd go to any lengths to achieve his goal.

He was quite meticulous in his planning and quite daring.

A dedication that paid off with a $65 million heist. It was the biggest

robbery that ever took place in Britain.

In 1986, a charming Italian playboy arrived in Great Britain.

His name was Valerio Vici, and he liked being the center of attention.

He wanted to be a film star, but he couldn't be a film star, so he did the

next best thing. He became an armed robber. He saw himself a bit like Looch

Cassidy in The Sundance Kid.

A bit of a mixture of both.

He was an amusing and lively guy, combined with quite clearly a commitment

to violence and ruthlessness.

Bank robbery gave Vici a life filled with luxury cars, expensive jewelry, and

beautiful women.

He had made a very conscious decision about lifestyle and about what kind of

life he wanted.

But beneath the designer suits and movie star smile, Valerio Vici liked being

bad.

As he said to me one day, James, I've lived by the gun and I think I'll die by

the gun.

He loved it. He loved it because he had a total disregard for authority.

And he would have shot you. If you had been his way, he would have killed you.

Make no mistake about that.

Greed and power weren't the only things driving him to crime.

He got into robbery really through violent politics and then realized that

rather than change the world through politics, what he wanted to do was

change the world by stealing as much money as he possibly could.

Police in Italy were closing in.

Vici decided to leave town.

With 24 bank robberies under his belt, he headed to London.

And what happened was when things got too hot for him there, he transferred

his activities to England.

Vici assumed an alias and readily adapted to life in London.

He couldn't speak a lot of English when he came here. He did that by taking

advanced courses in London.

While he was doing that, he set up a couple of bank robberies.

Fairly quickly after arriving here, within two or three months, he carried

out a very big robbery on Coutts, the merchant banker. It was an audacious

target. Coutts was the Queen's Bank, and it had an air of impenetrability.

This was a company, of course, with a 300-year history and had never, ever

been robbed.

Undaunted, Vici devised a simple plan.

He had a girlfriend who assisted him with the robberies. She used to write

their demands on a piece of paper or a piece of card that he would actually

show to the screen.

It was a crude stick-up, but it worked.

I think that they were caught completely off guard simply by the audacity of what

he did, which was to walk into one of their branches in Cavendish Square,

thrust a gun in the faces of the bank clerks in there and demand everything

they'd got.

It was a daring heist and remarkably easy for Vici. He bagged over a half

million dollars.

Over the next six months, he carried out four similar robberies. The English

police noted a new kind of robber was in town. He was armed, ruthless, and always

made his getaway on a motorbike.

But Vici had a serious problem.

He didn't know where to stash his loot safely and secretly.

Walking through London, he came across the Safety Deposit Box Centre. It was

located behind the world-famous department store, Harrods.

Safety deposit boxes are super-secure storage facilities that house row upon

row of small sealed safes, which you can rent on a monthly basis.

Perfect for a busy bank robber like Vici.

A lot of people with secrets kept security boxes.

These were people who had a lot of cash money that they didn't want to declare.

These could be straight businessmen who simply didn't want the tax authorities

to get their hands on the money. Or they could be criminals like Vici himself,

who had money that they'd stolen from one place and they needed to hide it

somewhere else.

Vici didn't waste any time in renting a box.

His mouth watered at the thought of so much wealth so close at hand.

Vici cased the vaults over the next several weeks. He wasn't optimistic.

There were security cameras everywhere.

The individual boxes were made of steel and had double locks.

Robbery seemed impossible.

But then, his social life put him on a path with destiny.

He started to move in a circle of people around certain nightclubs, and he met a

man who had the keys to the bank. Quite literally, he met Parvis Latif, who ran

a security company with vaults in Knightsbridge.

This chance encounter with the man who managed England's wealthiest vaults.

could be the key to the robbery of the century.

From that meeting, the first time, you know, he was formulating a plan to take

down that place because he knew that that place would hold more money than

the Bank of England.

Vici used his charm to pump Lateef for information.

Lateef told Vici...

His own salary was dropping because the vaults weren't filled to capacity. He

was losing out on commission.

The situation at Nice was there was a huge amount of boxes, but only a small

percentage of them were actually used by clients. So when Vici was aware of this,

he then began to put this plan together.

If Vici could convince Lateef to work the inside angle, he might get his hands

on the treasure trove after all.

He put all his energy into courting the would-be accomplice.

That relationship flourished and it revolved around Vici trying to talk

Lateef into this robbery plot, which, of course, he eventually was able to do in

a fairly short space of time. He persuaded him, said, come on, we can

take millions of pounds out of this, half for you, half for me.

And Lateef was putty in his hands.

Vici was now one step closer to his dream of pulling off the biggest robbery

in history.

It was time to start drawing the plans for the perfect heist.

Valerio Vici, an Italian bank robber, had come to London to pull off the

biggest heist of his career.

The Knightsbridge Vaults. He had already charmed the vaults manager, Parvez

Lateef, into helping him plunder the treasure.

Vici had a Svengali-like influence over Lateef, and he persuaded him that they

could not fail to get away with it if they put together a little plan.

When he got Lateef into it, it was half the battle to know what was going on, so

he knew the location, he knew where the vaults were, he had him diagrams drawn

for him.

Using blueprints supplied by Lateef, Vici began planning the quickest and

most efficient route around the vaults.

Lateef had also indicated which boxes were empty and which were rented.

But there was still a lot of work to do for Valerio Vici.

There was no master key. It wasn't a question of walking in and dismantling

the security system and pressing a button on all the boxes that would force

themselves open.

Vici knew exactly the boxes that were operational, that were actually being

used. But getting into them wouldn't be easy. Without a key, Vici would have to

crack each safe by hand. That would mean bringing a chisel and sledgehammer into

the vault with him.

The situation was quite clear-cut.

I mean, you know, he'd got an inside person that would allow him access, and

really it made the whole thing very easy. So the question was very much a

question of, you know, timing and, you know, when it was going to be carried

out.

Perfect timing would help Vici pull off the heist of a lifetime.

Bad timing would send him to jail.

For days on end, Vici studied the activity at the vaults from behind the

tinted windows of a van, armed with a portable computer and a tape recorder.

He documented the employees' schedules, the guards' shifts, and the customers'

arrival times.

After two weeks, Vici had a finalized plan.

Vici would hire a crew to help him, but no one was to know that Lateef was in on

the plot.

What Vici suggested to Lateef was if Lateef were to take him in there one day

when it was quiet, posing as a prospective client, that they could then

fake a robbery.

Vici and one accomplice would enter the vaults posing as prospective clients.

Lateef would give them a guided tour.

He would also make sure that security cameras were disabled.

Vici and his accomplice would overwhelm Lateef and the guards.

The other crew members would then enter by the back door armed with heavy power

tools for cracking the safe boxes.

Vici also had a day and time.

The heist would take place on a Sunday, because it was viewing by appointment

only which Lateef could control.

The best time would be between 3 and 5.30 p.m., because only one guard would

come to lock up the center's main vault door at 6.

Now Vici had to get his crew together.

Professionals would want a big share of the pot, and they might have their own

way of doing things.

Instead, Vici decided to go with an amateur gang he knew he could control.

He was in total control of this operation.

The people that he took on board were, I go back to the analogy of Butch Cassidy

and the Sundance Kid, because if there was a hole in the wall gang, they were

the hole in the wall gang.

None of them had any experience of this type of crime, certainly the magnitude

of what Vici was taking on.

Vici picked a bunch of petty criminals he had met at a London nightclub.

They were David Poole, a butcher, Eric Rubin, a salesman, Peter Donahue.

a restaurant chef and israel pinkus a retired soccer player but looking at the

criminal backgrounds were well and truly out of the depth because none of them

were strong and none of them had the ability to do anything remotely like

what they eventually did vici's crew was under his thumb to the point that they

believed they would be killed if they backed out if they went through with the

plot however they stood to make a million dollars a piece

There was intimidation, and once they were in it, they were in it to go the

full hog.

The heist was set for Sunday, July 12, 1987.

In the final week build-up, Vici locked himself in his apartment.

There, he recreated the size and shape of the vaults with lengths of yarn.

He rehearsed the plan over and over.

If he wanted to succeed, he had to beat the clock.

He had just 90 minutes to break all the boxes open.

By the end of the week, he was confident he could pull it off with his eyes shut.

Vici would only have one shot at the real thing.

Sunday afternoon had arrived.

It was time to go.

Vici and his accomplice, Eric Rubin, entered the vaults through the back

entrance at 310.

The rest of the gang waited behind Harrods.

Lateef greeted them as planned.

The 90-minute countdown had just begun.

They then met with Lateef, who took them along there.

All of them were dressed in business suits, looked very smart, carried

briefcases. And when they arrived at the control room of the Knightsbridge

vaults, there were guards on duty as there would be on any shift.

And of course, here comes the boss with the smartly dressed guys, so they had no

reason to be suspicious.

Vici covered his mouth with a handkerchief, pretending to have a cold.

He hoped that no one would recognize him from his many previous visits to the

vaults as a client. He certainly wasn't identified.

And then it all started.

After the tour, Vici asked to be taken to a private room, a place where clients

viewed the contents of their boxes.

Vici then, from out of his briefcase, pulled a Beretta automatic pistol.

Guns was put to Lateef's head.

One of his accomplices produced a...

With the guards under his control, it was time to get the rest of his men

inside.

By this time, Bolero is ringing his people outside, saying it's all on, and

they then came in. The plan was working like clockwork, and the scene was set

for the most brilliantly executed crime of the century.

The biggest haul in history.

Sunday, July 12th, 1987, 3.45pm. Inside the Knightsbridge Vaults.

We had a certain amount of time to do this, because I think it was around 5.30

in the evening, the center has to be visited manually by security personnel.

So even though they had incapacitated all the security staff in the premises,

they were working against the clock.

Every second counted, and Vici ordered his men into action.

Disappeared downstairs, they produced power drills, case openers, big

crowbars. It was quite a matter of ease for them to start to attack these boxes.

It took them probably three or four minutes to break open each one.

Fortunately, they didn't have to worry about being quiet.

They were in the basement and they were banging away at this thing. And the only

people who could hear them were the security guards who were handcuffed to

the columns inside.

With the minutes ticking away, speed was critical.

Vici and his gang formed an assembly line. He took a hammer, which was honed

down to a fine point, and he would then smash the lock of each individual box

until it sprung, and then he would pull it open. So as he went along hitting the

boxes, damaging the lock, it's springing open, he would move along, and behind

him would come the other gang members.

Because even he, as clever as he was, he didn't know exactly what he would find

in the boxes.

It was like unwrapping Christmas presents.

The bounty exceeded Vici's wildest dreams.

As they opened them up, there was everything, thousands and thousands of

banknotes. Millions of pounds worth of pearl necklaces, of diamond brooches,

bearer bonds, cash, Fabergé eggs.

There was a huge amount of dirty money. There was criminal money, there was

money in there that was being...

being kept back by various business people to fool the tax authorities.

The plan was moving forward to perfection.

But with Vici racing against the clock, he made a terrible mistake.

They did 121 boxes.

During that time, Valerio cut his hand with a fingerprint.

With the heist nearing completion, vici didn't stop to worry about the forensic

evidence there's three layers of metal on all of the boxes and as he put his

hand in quickly to pull open he cut his finger and left the fingerprint inside

there inside the box vici and his gang successfully plundered 121 boxes for

over 60 million dollars in cash and valuables

After the robbery, they took all the bags, there was about six or seven bags,

and they were laden with money, drugs, diamonds.

With the new shift of security guards scheduled to arrive soon, Vici ordered

the gang to gather up the loot and leave.

All the bags were put into the back of the van, and Vici was driving.

Vici and the gang fled the vaults and made their way to the getaway vehicle.

He alone was in charge of all the property.

And at varying locations, as he was moving to his safe house in North

London, he dropped each individual gang member off.

The gang knew that they would be given a mere $5,000 pocket money until the heat

had died down.

while Vici would take the millions to a predetermined safe house.

One hour after Vici's gang had left the vaults, Britain's elite detectives from

Scotland Yard swarmed the scene.

They knew they were in the wake of a criminal genius.

So many master strokes had been pulled.

The security cameras had been disabled by Lateef.

and not a single image was recorded.

It was obvious to the police right from the start that this was an enormous

robbery.

Knightsbridge vaults were very, very well known as places where very, very

rich people, very rich people, kept huge stashes of jewellery and money.

Although it was impossible to say exactly what had gone, because the

contents of each box were only known to the key holders, it was clear to the

police that this was going to be A multi-million pound crime.

I knew that if it was a safe deposit centre, it had to be something quite

big, so I went up to the scene.

And when I went downstairs, well, it was just mind-blowing.

I mean, that was littered all over the place.

This had to have been planned with some kind of inside help. What they didn't

know was who was the inside agent.

This was the hour of truth for Lateef. He had to turn in an Oscar-winning

performance to the police.

It was a very quiet individual. In any event, the fact that he would sort of

walk around the center and say nothing, it wasn't unusual.

It wasn't as though you would think, well, he's showing signs of nerves, he's

not speaking to anyone. He was just very, very quiet.

The last person in the world you'd have thought would have been involved with

Richie.

With Lateef putting on such a convincing front, the police couldn't get a fix on

the suspected inside man, so they turned their attention to finding some physical

evidence.

The forensic people moved in. The whole scene was examined in detail by the

forensic team.

Within 24 hours, the crime scene investigators had found Vici's bloody

fingerprint. The print was immediately processed through Scotland Yard's

international fingerprinting ID system.

We got positive identification combined that it belonged to Valerio Vici.

It's often been speculated that, you know, would we have caught him if they

hadn't found the fingerprint?

Identifying Vici was one thing.

Catching him was something else.

Valerio Vici had robbed $60 million in cash and jewelry, and he left his

signature. He must have known that he would be making himself vulnerable to

Scotland Yard through leaving that bloodstained fingerprint behind.

Vici travelled through Latin America. Then he made one fatal error. He

returned to London to ship his beloved Ferrari to his hideout in Latin America.

By coming back to London, he signed his own demise, really. Every policeman in

the country was looking for Valerio Vici by this time.

Believing himself invincible, Vici couldn't resist dropping by his

favourite place.

the White's Hotel in London.

Vici didn't know that the police had been tipped off about his return by one

of his former accomplices and were secretly surveying the hotel.

In the end, Vici's arrest was exactly the way he probably would have wanted it

because it was something like out of a Hollywood film.

He confessed to all the crimes and said, I did it.

That's why I got 22 years.

As a good prisoner, Vici was granted day releases.

On one of these...

He was shot dead by the police.

He was planning another armed robbery.

The one secret he took to his grave was where he hid the $60 million he stole.

There's never been another robber like him. There probably never will be.

Now, high-tech detectives take on a real-life mystery.

What deep, dark secrets will they uncover?

Follow the clues on Forensic Files, coming up right now, here on Court TV.