You just cannot ignore this bank heist because it continued for a week during Beirut’s Civil War. On Jan. 20, 1976, a group associated with the Palestine Liberation Organization used special force and stole $210 million from the British Bank of the Middle East. The gang broke the wall, which the bank shared with a church and used the help of Corsican locksmiths to access safety deposit boxes.

2. Brink’sMAT Warehouse: The “Fiery” Robbery

You can keep the Brink’s MAT robbery in the list of the most notorious yet successful bank robberies of all time. It occurred on November 26, 1983 when six men broke into the company’s bank facility at Heathrow Airport and took $30 million worth of diamonds, gold bullion and cash. Anthony Black was the security guard at the facility, and helped pull off this heist with other conspirators who entered the facility, disabled the guards by dousing them in gasoline and threatening to set them on fire if they wouldn’t cooperate. One of the robbers, Micky McAvoy, was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment and Black was sentenced to six years only for disclosing details of security measures.

3. Knightsbridge Security Deposit Robbery: The “Italian” Work

Valerio Viccei was the mastermind behind the heist that took place on July 12, 1987 and resulted in a robbery involving $66 million, worth about $154.7 million as of today. Valerio and his associates entered the facility, pretending to be customers. They overpowered the guards and put up a closed sign before they started cleaning out the safety deposit boxes. Valerio was finally arrested and received 22 years of sentence in an Italian jail. He was killed during a police shoot-out in 2000, just a day before his release from prison.

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