Albert "Bert" Spaggiari was born in 1932 in France. He was constantly in trouble for stealing. His father died when he was three and his mother, who ran a lingerie shop, quickly remarried, but the boy hated his stepfather. He left home at 17 to join the Parachute Regiment, which was fighting Ho Chi Minh’s communist army in Indochina.
Spaggiari was a tough soldier, wounded twice and decorated for bravery. But his old weakness resurfaced and in 1953 he was arrested after breaking into a milk bar in Hanoi to steal the takings. He was sent back in irons to France and jailed.
By the late 1960's Spaggiari seemed to have turned over a new leaf, married a nurse and moved to the South of France where he opened a photography shop in Nice.
In 1975 Spaggiari and The Corsican Brotherhood were recruited in France by the Chilean secret police, DINA. Spaggiari's code name was "Daniel".
Spaggiari began to get itchy fingers once more. When he learned that the sewers of Nice ran close to the walls of the Société Générale bank, plans for a daring robbery began to form in his mind.
First he rented a safety box in the bank's vault and planted in it a loud alarm clock set to go off at midnight. Spaggiari wanted to make sure there were no acoustic or seismic detection alarms to spoil his plans.
He didn't have to worry about any alarms, the bank's vault was thought to be impregnable. The door was incredibly thick and there was no obvious way to access the walls.
He then decided to recruite a gang of professionals from Marseilles who headed into the sewers. Spaggiair decided not to participate in the heist itself. For two months in the summer of 1976 the gang waded each night through human waste, digging an eight-meter tunnel which Spaggiari demanded was shored up as well as a mine shaft.
On the Friday night of the three-day Bastille Day weekend they broke through into the vault floor, sealed its door shut from the inside with a welding gun, and broke open 371 safety deposit boxes. Spaggiari brought them a meal including wine and pâté, and reportedly they sat down in the vault for a picnic lunch. Before they left on July 20th, they left a message on the walls of the vault: sans armes, ni haine, ni violence ("without weapons, hatred, or violence").
The bank did not know what was in the boxes, so the value of the haul would never be known. Estimates ranged from 30 million to 100 million francs in cash and jewels.
Police were baffled at first, but a few weeks later, acting on a tip-off, the police arrested one of the thieves. After a lengthy interrogation, he named the entire gang, including Spaggiari. Spaggiari was on a trip to the Far East accompanying the Mayor of Nice as a photographer and was arrested when the returning plane touched down.
First he rented a safety box in the bank's vault and planted in it a loud alarm clock set to go off at midnight. Spaggiari wanted to make sure there were no acoustic or seismic detection alarms to spoil his plans.
He didn't have to worry about any alarms, the bank's vault was thought to be impregnable. The door was incredibly thick and there was no obvious way to access the walls.
He then decided to recruite a gang of professionals from Marseilles who headed into the sewers. Spaggiair decided not to participate in the heist itself. For two months in the summer of 1976 the gang waded each night through human waste, digging an eight-meter tunnel which Spaggiari demanded was shored up as well as a mine shaft.
On the Friday night of the three-day Bastille Day weekend they broke through into the vault floor, sealed its door shut from the inside with a welding gun, and broke open 371 safety deposit boxes. Spaggiari brought them a meal including wine and pâté, and reportedly they sat down in the vault for a picnic lunch. Before they left on July 20th, they left a message on the walls of the vault: sans armes, ni haine, ni violence ("without weapons, hatred, or violence").
The bank did not know what was in the boxes, so the value of the haul would never be known. Estimates ranged from 30 million to 100 million francs in cash and jewels.
Police were baffled at first, but a few weeks later, acting on a tip-off, the police arrested one of the thieves. After a lengthy interrogation, he named the entire gang, including Spaggiari. Spaggiari was on a trip to the Far East accompanying the Mayor of Nice as a photographer and was arrested when the returning plane touched down.
Spaggiari first denied his involvement in the break-in, then acknowledged it but claimed that he was working to fund a secret political organization named Catena.
During his case hearings, Spaggiari made a fictitious document which he claimed as evidence. He made the document coded so it had to be deciphered by the judge. Spaggiari asked to see the judge in his chambers. While in the judge's chambers, judge Richard Bouaziz was distracted by the document he was trying to decipher Spaggiari suddenly ran to a window, flung it open and jumped out. He landed safely on a parked car. “Au revoir,” he shouted with a wave, then roared away sitting on the back of an accomplice’s motor cycle. The French police never saw him again.
During his case hearings, Spaggiari made a fictitious document which he claimed as evidence. He made the document coded so it had to be deciphered by the judge. Spaggiari asked to see the judge in his chambers. While in the judge's chambers, judge Richard Bouaziz was distracted by the document he was trying to decipher Spaggiari suddenly ran to a window, flung it open and jumped out. He landed safely on a parked car. “Au revoir,” he shouted with a wave, then roared away sitting on the back of an accomplice’s motor cycle. The French police never saw him again.
In his absence the judge gave him a life sentence. He is reported to have had plastic surgery. Spaggiari spent the rest of his days drifting between South America and Europe and is believed to have returned to France occasionally to see his wife, "Audi". When he died of throat cancer on June 8th, 1989, in a country house in Belluno, Italy. He had been living in Italy under a false name for a number of years.
Spaggiari wrote a book about the robbery in 1977, translated into English as “Sewers of Gold.”
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