Albert Spaggiari
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Albert Spaggiari (1933 - 1989) was a French criminal who, in 1976, organized a break-in into a Société Générale bank in Nice, France.
Spaggiari was described cavalier and stylish. Previously in his life had been a paratrooper for the French Army and worked for OAS, an anti-de Gaulle, anti-decolonisation organisation. In 1976 he was an owner of a photographic supply store in Nice. But he apparently quickly became bored with with his law abiding middle class life. He also still harboured a strong resentment of the upper class "bourgeois" society. After much searching and reconoitering, he begun to plan a break-in into the Société Générale bank and eventually decided to do it by digging into the bank vault from below. There were no alarms protecting the vault as it was considered utterly impregnable – the door wall was extremely thick and there was no obvious way to access the other walls.
He recruited a hand-picked group of international thieves for his scheme, including Gaby Anglade, would-be-assassin of Charles De Gaulle, and con artist Jean Kay. His men made their way into sewers and begun a two-month digging from the sewer under the bank's vault.
On July 16 1976, during a long weekend due to Bastille Day festivities, Spaggiari's gang broke into the vault itself. They opened 400 safety deposit boxes and stole 60 million francs worth of money, securities and valuables. According to some accounts, Spaggiari is said to have brought his men some refreshments and reportedly they are said to have sat down in the vault for a picnic lunch, spending hours picking through the various safety deposit boxes. Before they left on July 20, they left this message on the walls of the vault: "without hatred, without violence, without weapons". This was Spaggiari's message to the world, and he obviosly considered himself to be something more than a common thief.
At first the French police were baffled. However, by the end of October, they were closing in, and on a tip from a former girlfriend, they arrested one of the errant thieves. After a lengthy interogation, he turned over the entire gang, including Spaggiari. When Spaggiari, who had been in a holiday in the Far East, returned to Nice he was arrested at the airport.
Four months later, when Spaggiari's case finally came into trial, he jumped out of the courtroom window, landed safely on a parked car and escaped on a waiting motorcycle. Some reports claimed that the owner of the car later received a cheque in the mail for the damage to his hood.
There are varrying accounts of what became of him. However he is said to have died under "mysterious circumstances", or possibly of throat cancer in or around 1989. What remains of the money has never been found.
Miscellaneous
The 1979 movie, Les Égouts du paradis (translated in English as The Sewers of Paradise), directed by José Giovanni was based on these events.
External links
- A page in French about him. Accuracy unknown. (http://www.les-affranchistes.com/spaggiari.html)
- Les Égouts du paradis (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0080186/) A movie based on the heist. (French, 1979)fr:Albert Spaggiari