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– What are the ten biggest robberies in history?
– Which bandit has been arrested the most times in the world?
– How was the theft at Masp, in Brazil, in 2007?
– What is the difference between theft, theft and assault?
It’s not easy to make a list of the best known criminals. After all, whether they are legendary characters or flesh and blood, the outlaw relationship seems to have no end! To fit everything here, we had to sift through the annals of criminality, until we were left with just six miscreants who went down in history for the boldness of their actions or for peculiarities that made them unmistakable. Some, paradoxically, even won the sympathy of the people! With you, the immortal bulwarks of thug life…
AL CAPONE
America’s most famous gangster, Alphonse Capone (1899-1947) dominated organized crime in Prohibition Chicago, making big money off the black market in booze and having people killed – as in the brutal Valentine’s Day Massacre. Precocious, little Al began his criminal career in sixth grade, when he dropped out of high school in Brooklyn to join the hoodlums. It was when a street fight left the mark on his face that earned him the nickname Scarface (Scar Face). At the age of 28, his fortune, also the result of gambling and prostitution, was estimated at 100 million dollars. Thanks to federal agent Eliott Ness, Al was arrested for tax evasion. The Intouchables (1987), with Robert de Niro as the gangster, is a classic moment in the vast filmography about the criminal.
BARRABÁS
Everyone knows the story of the thief released from the crucifixion to make way for Jesus Christ. But little is known about this fascinating figure, whose name in Aramaic means «son of the father» or «son of the teacher» (his father is speculated to be a Jewish leader). A hypothesis for his conviction would be his participation in a murder during a revolt against Roman rule in Israel – which would make him a revolutionary and not a common thief. Neither the Holy Scriptures say, nor Bible scholars know what happened to him after his release during the Passover feast. But Barrabás (1962), with Anthony Quinn in the title role, imagines several possibilities in the best style of Hollywood super-productions.
ROBIN HOOD
Villain or hero? The answer is easy: the English highwayman who made the life of the Sheriff of Nottingham go down in history as a good bandit, who stole from the rich to give to the poor. A contemporary of King Richard the Lionheart, who commanded the destinies of England in the 14th century, Robin led a happy band of adventurers who were always up to mischief against the powerful. When things got hot, they hid in Sherwood Forest. Even today, historians debate whether he really existed or whether he was just the fruit of the fertile imagination of medieval writers. Anyway, the story yielded dozens of cool movies, from Disney animations to the swashbuckling classic The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), one of the greatest performances by the great Errol Flynn.
BUTCH CASSIDY & SUNDANCE KID
Immortalized by the handsome Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the 1969 film of the same name (which won four Oscars, two of them for the brilliant music of Burt Bacharach), they formed the best-known pair of robbers in the American Old West at the end of the 19th century. They also had a Robin Hood feel and were adored by those in need. After many robberies of banks, farms and trains, they fled to South America, where they continued their life as criminals. Nobody knows for sure how they died, but the official version says that they were surprised by the police and shot in a village lost in the confines of Bolivia, in 1909.
LAMP
Virgulino Ferreira da Silva, the King of Cangaço, was for a long time the number one enemy of the northeastern police. His outlaw career began in 1920 to avenge his father’s death. Stealing, collecting tribute from landowners and murdering for hire or revenge, he saw his fame spread throughout the country. To top it off, he was announced as “sent from God” by Father Cícero and credited as the author of the immortal song “Mulher Rendeira”. In 1938, after 18 years in crime, his life came to an end in an ambush in Grota do Angico, in the interior of Sergipe. Lampião was killed along with the equally fascinating companion Maria Bonita and most of her gang. His head, severed, ended up on display in a public square. The classic biopic O Cangaceiro (1953) inaugurated a series of Brazilian films dedicated to cangaço – a small number, however, when compared to its presence in cordel literature.
MADAME SATAN
He was a black man of few words, who did not like to be trifled with and loved to wear silk vests and shirts. The dandy from Pernambuco João Francisco dos Santos, known as Madame Satã, was one of the most famous bandits that Rio de Janeiro has ever known. A self-confessed homosexual and an expert in the knife, what he loved most was beating up policemen. A seducer, he won the friendship of famous people, such as singers Noel Rosa and Francisco Alves, but he boasted of having killed one of the greatest geniuses of samba, Geraldo Pereira, with a sweeping hook. Despite this, the cartoonist Jaguar said of him: “He was my hero and best friend”. The story of this transgressor with a capital T, who was born in 1900 and spent 27 years languishing behind bars, made one of the best Brazilian films of the 1970s, A Rainha Diaba, and will be told again in a feature film scheduled for release this year. .