Gold has long had a special allure to people. It's shiny, easily shaped and it doesn't rust. According to World Book Encyclopedia, people have sought out gold more than any other metal for thousands of years.
Here are a few stories about gold robberies, both large and small.
1. Brinks Mat Gold Heist, Nov. 26, 1983: Six robbers broke into the Brinks Mat warehouse at Heathrow Airport in London, intent on stealing £3 million in cash ($12.1 million in today's dollars, adjusted for inflation). They also found £26 million ($105 million) in gold bullion (10 tons of the stuff) and so they took it as well. It was the biggest haul in British history. Four men were eventually charged and jailed for the crime, but three tons of the gold remains missing. Some say that anyone who bought gold jewelry in Britain after 1983 is wearing Brinks Mat gold.
2. Nazi Gold: During World War II, Nazi Germany stole some 330 tons of gold from Holocaust victims and then stored some of it in Swiss banks. Switzerland and the Allied Powers signed an agreement in 1946 in which the Swiss agreed to pay $58.1 million in gold to rebuild Europe, and the Allies agreed to drop further claims to monetary gold that the Swiss bought from Germany during the war.
An investigation in the 1990s revealed that Swiss banks handled 76 percent of Nazi Germany's gold transactions amounting to $450 million. A portion of this had been looted. Evidence also surfaced that Spain and Portugal had received Nazi gold from Switzerland.
In 1997, the United States and Britain agreed to transfer their Nazi gold holdings (worth up to 40 million pounds) to a fund for victims of the Holocaust.
In 1998, Swiss commercial banks agree to pay Holocaust survivors and their relatives more than $1.25 billion over the next three years to end claims that Swiss banks had withheld millions of dollars since World War II. (
See PBS Frontline 'Nazi Gold')
3. The Great Ghan Gold Robbery of 1935: This one occurred between May 28-30, 1935, on a lonely stretch of railway linking Alice Springs with Quorn, Australia. A registered mail bag containing a parcel of gold ingots, weighing 34 pounds and valued at £4,000 ($330,000, adjusted for inflation), disappeared from a safe in the brakevan of the "Express." The gold was never recovered. (
See 'The Great Ghan Gold Robbery of 1935')
4. Weston, W.Va., Gold Robbery of 1861: The Union Army took $27,000 in gold coins ($540,000 in today's money) from a Weston bank, June 30, 1861, and brought it to Wheeling to fund the Reorganized Government of Virginia -- a group of western Virginians who did not want to secede from the Union. This laid the foundation for the creation of West Virginia in 1863. (
See 'The Great Gold Robbery')
5. The Great Train Robbery, 1855: Three men stole £12,000 ($1.3 million, adjusted for inflation) worth of gold and gold coins from a train on the South Eastern Railway in England. The gold and coins were in wooden boxes stored in iron safes. The case was cracked by good luck; two of the men were sentenced to 14 years in Australia and the other to two years in prison. (
See 'Wikipedia: Great Gold Robbery of 1855')
Other Sources:
Gerlach, John, and Sara Steck Melford. "Gold." World Book Online Reference Center. 2006. Dulles, Va. July 28, 2006.
"Gold." Columbia Encyclopedia. 2006. http://reference.aol.com/article/_a/gold/20051206032609990005
