Heist Club

In October 2018, in the dead of night, a mini-van drives along the California coast on the famous Route 101. When it pulls over to a cliff's edge, the van's passengers get out. But they don't take photos or enjoy the view. No, what they seek sits on the side of the jagged mountain. With their backpacks and ropes secured, they rappel over the edge. Minutes later, they climb back up, now with full backpacks along with even more bags filled to the brim. After they drive off, all that remains is a small trail of dirt. They are now in possession of $600,000 worth of a teeny cliff dwelling plant known as the bluff lettuce.

On a February evening in 1785 Paris, an intermediary for Queen Marie Antoinette enters a famous jewelry shop to secure a diamond necklace for the royal: the most expensive in history. She has been sent on strict instructions to keep the transaction secret, lest the king find out. The intermediary leaves as quick as she came, with a promise that the queen will start sending payments come summertime. When she puts the necklace in her bag, it's the last the jewelers ever see of it, and payment never comes. This is the affair of the queen's stolen necklace.

Just outside of Montreal, a vast industrial warehouse holds thousands of barrels of Canada's most valuable export: maple syrup. Each barrel weighs 1500 pounds and is worth nearly 20x more than crude oil. A single surveyor is making his routine inspection — climbing up on and around the barrels to make sure everything is up to snuff, when one barrel falls to the ground. Empty. It would not be the only one. A gang of sticky-fingered thieves managed to run away with $20 million of maple syrup.

In the days leading up to Christmas in 1990, the affluent town of Winnetka, Illinois suffers from a string of home invasion style robberies. Investigators believe that the break-ins are connected as they follow a similar M.O: the back or basement doors are forced open, the homes are ransacked, and the faucets are always left running. With more families going out of town for the holidays, police are on high alert to catch the criminals in the act. Until an unexpected hero comes along and saves the day.

Welcome to part 2 of the Goodfellas heist. Last week on Heist Club, we dove into the world of the New York mafia in the 1970s and met Jimmy Burke, a powerful mob associate with a penchant for thievery, and his Robert's Lounge Gang. The gang is now moments away from robbing the Lufthansa vault at JFK airport.