Bank robbery is a serious crime for which you can spend up to 12 years behind bars (and if there are victims, up to life). But this does not stop those who decided that banks earn too much and can share. But, surprisingly, sometimes bank owners steal more from them than the robbers. We have studied some of the most high-profile bank robbery cases and are sharing them with you.
Bank robberies are not like in a western
In 2022, or more precisely, in the first 11 months of the year, 6,133 cases of robbery and 42,305 cases of robbery were registered in Russia. Of this total, 84.4% and 67.9% of crimes were solved, respectively. And some of these crimes relate to bank robberies, which usually increase when the economy is not very good.
Banks are now usually divided into 2 main zones - protected (cash desks, vaults) and open (where tellers and consultants are located). And the security system is built in such a way as to maximally protect those places where there are valuables
, and not interfere with accepting clients.
Therefore, the “traditional” bank robbery - with weapons and in masks - is more likely the lot of the creators of action films. Petty crooks steal ATMs
and self-service terminals (from which, by the way, it is extremely difficult to get cash out), larger scammers steal using hacking techniques and social engineering, and the largest ones become bank managers and already steal billions.
But, of course, ordinary attacks on bank branches and cash collectors, unfortunately, do happen. According to former law enforcement officers, the most serious rampant crime was in the 90s
last century, but now such cases are becoming much less common. They mostly rob supermarket cash registers or microloan company offices.
By the way, banks were robbed even during the USSR. Usually these were raids on poorly guarded savings banks
(where there were no large sums), but sometimes it was like Western action films.
The most notorious case was the robbery of the State Bank of the USSR for one and a half million rubles
, which at the exchange rate of that time was about $2 million. The robbers were Nikolai and Felix Kalachyan, and their spotter inside the State Bank was the auditor of the Armenian Republican Office Zaven Baghdasaryan. They were able to steal the money by entering the vault from above, literally breaking down the concrete themselves.
They made a mistake because the entire stolen amount was in new banknotes of the same series, and after some time they were spotted in Moscow by a secret agent of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department - the robbers were trying to buy expensive equipment, and a little later (a year after the robbery) the criminals were detained thanks to the vigilance of the cashier savings banks.
The court decided on capital punishment for the robbers, and the State Bank employee who helped them was sentenced to 11 years. The sentence was carried out
– although the Supreme Soviet of the USSR decided to pardon, the document arrived in Yerevan a day later.
Who is respected in the zone?
Thieves have always occupied a special position in prisons. Almost any illegal activity related to theft allowed a person to take a worthy place in prison society. Tweezers, swindlers, thieves who commit major crimes as part of gangs were and are respected here.
People who have received an article for financial fraud, especially for crimes against government agencies and the system, are also respected. For example, in places of deprivation of liberty, persons who have committed crimes against security services are honored. They treat criminals who have committed a robbery of a bank or a cash collector's car with special respect. Blood feud is also held in high esteem in prison.
However, it should be understood that respect for a specific article is given in advance. That is, a person may lose the trust of his cellmates if time shows that there is nothing to respect him for. In the first weeks, the inmates take a closer look at the newcomer, and here it is important for him to be able to stand up for himself, possessing intelligence and character. Any manifestations of weakness can lead to the fact that cellmates will make the prisoner a six or even enroll him in the caste of the offended.
The most notorious bank robberies in Russia
Before talking about the most notorious cases of Russian bank robbery, it is worth recalling the responsibility for such crimes. So, liability for robbery is provided for in Article 161 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation
. Sanctions under this article may be as follows:
- compulsory labor for up to 240 hours, correctional labor for up to 2 years, arrest for up to 6 months, imprisonment for up to 4 years;
- if it was illegal entry, committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy, on a particularly large scale and with the use of violence - the punishment increases: from 6 to 12 years in prison
, a fine of up to a million rubles or in the amount of the income of the convicted person for up to 5 years.
Even if the attempt to commit a robbery was unsuccessful, and also if the crime was only being prepared and was not committed, criminal liability will still be based on “attempted robbery” in accordance with Article 30 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
Bank branch robberies
Among the recent high-profile cases, it is worth recalling the completely daring robbery of the Metallurg Bank in Moscow
. It was a branch at the Moscow market in Lyublino. Those who would be completely unrealistic to suspect of this took part in the robbery:
- a former investigator at the prosecutor's office (though he had previously served time for robbery);
- 3 fighters from the Alpha unit of the FSB;
- fighter of the Vympel unit of the FSB;
- 2 employees of Directorate K from the FSB;
- tax officer and other persons.
The robbers knew in advance that entrepreneurs would come to the bank to hand over the proceeds, and simply entered the branch, showing their real business IDs at the entrance
, as well as a fake search warrant.
They came up with a cunning scheme: they declared the money brought by businessmen “criminal” and began to confiscate it. When one of the bank employees suspected something and pressed the panic button, Russian Guard soldiers arrived. But, having seen the FSB IDs, they decided not to interfere in the situation.
In total, the robbers took $136 million from the bank, and managed to spend about half of the amount. When one of the robbers was putting money into a safe deposit box to give to his accomplices, he was detained. Since all this happened in 2022, the case is still being considered in court.
The story of Luiza Khairullina from the city of Salavat (Bashkortostan) has become no less popular
), who worked as a senior cashier in a branch of Rosselkhozbank. At the end of May she disappeared – along with her husband and two children. Along with her, money disappeared from the bank, from 20 to 25 million rubles.
Louise became almost a folk heroine (she defied bank robbers), but in the end she was still detained. The fugitives were found after just a month and a half in a rented apartment. Now Luiza Khairullina is in a pre-trial detention center (they say the case is moving quickly), the court chose house arrest for her husband, and the children were given to their grandfather to be raised.
The money, interestingly, was never found
. Louise's husband first spoke about his gambling addiction and the fact that he lost all his money on bets. Then he changed his version and said that his wife stole the money.
Liliya Aznabaeva, an employee of Otkritie Bank from Ufa, was detained
. Within a month, she withdrew 6.5 million rubles from the bank, and her boss took out 43 million in two and a half years. All of them were charged.
There were more severe precedents - the robbery of Sovcombank in St. Petersburg for 8 million rubles, in Orenburg an attacker was detained while trying to rob a bank, and in Nakhodka the office of Sberbank was openly robbed for 6 million rubles. All these people were identified and detained.
Unfortunately, in 2022 there were victims during robberies
. In Yekaterinburg, a man with a stocking on his head entered the office of the Otkritie Bank with a sawn-off shotgun and something similar to explosives. He fired a shot at the surveillance camera and demanded that all the money from the cash register be given to him. One of the visitors tried to tie up the robber, but was mortally wounded. The criminal was neutralized and detained.
Among the most notorious crimes of past years is a robbery at a Sberbank branch in Chita in 2007. The attackers killed two guards and took away more than 38 million rubles and 2 kilograms of precious metal. After 3 days the robbers were detained
.
In general, the statistics of such cases are quite rich:
- in June 2013, from a Sberbank branch in the center of Moscow
at 2 a.m., somehow turning off the alarm system; - in May 2007, Zernobank was robbed in Barnaul
. There were no casualties - a security guard was killed, and 15 million rubles, 10 thousand dollars and euros each, bank bills, as well as jewelry from 37 safe deposit boxes were stolen. In 10 days the crime was solved, the criminals received sentences of 17-18 years in prison; - in December 2011, in the Kedr Bank vault in Moscow,
employees found dummies instead of banknotes. In total, approximately 22 million rubles worth of money was missing; - in February 2011, a branch of the Bank of Moscow was robbed in Vladikavkaz
- they took out 179 million rubles, 232 thousand dollars and 324 thousand euros. Among the 4 detainees was a bank cashier, all received sentences ranging from 6 years probation to 9.5 years in a maximum security colony.
It is worth noting that most of these crimes were solved (and almost all open robbery attacks in particular).
Cash collectors are under threat
The branch of a serious bank is guarded quite well, so rare robbers decide to take money out of the vault or from the cash register. They choose another moment - when the money is transported by collectors. This is, for example, collecting revenue from enterprises or transporting cash from bank branches to central vaults. And, unfortunately, robberies of cash collectors often end tragically.
The most notorious robbery of a cash collector occurred in June 2009. One of the Sberbank collectors, while transporting money, threatened his colleagues with a machine gun, stole 250 million rubles and disappeared into the forest
. They found him quickly - after 8 days. As a result, the robber received 8 years in a maximum security colony; the driver of the cash-in-transit vehicle (according to investigators, he helped in the robbery), the robber’s wife and father-in-law also received sentences.
The next largest robbery took place in June 2010. More than 130 million rubles were stolen from an armored car
.
The robbers turned out to be other collectors of the same company - they killed the security guard and the driver, and then one of their accomplices. The criminals were found the following month; they could not restrain themselves and began to spend money. All received punishment, the maximum being imprisonment for a term of 23 years
.
Other, no less resonant cases:
- in February 2009, 43 million rubles were stolen
right on the Don federal highway. The robbers were in police uniform; - 40 million rubles
were stolen from collectors of Esid Bank in Nazran , one of the collectors was seriously injured and died; - in June 2005, as a result of an attack on the car of a private security company near Vneshprombank in Moscow, approximately 30 million rubles
, and the collector was killed.
Nothing was reported about the progress of the investigations into these cases, probably so as not to fuel public interest in the robberies of cash collectors.
By the way, for this, as it turned out, extremely risky work, they still don’t pay very much. A person who transports millions of rubles and risks his life for them receives an average of 30-40 thousand rubles a month
. Maybe that's why collectors themselves often become robbers?
ATMs
An ATM, at first glance, is a very attractive object of robbery: the devices are often located in sparsely populated places, video surveillance in them does not always work, and there may be about 8-10 million rubles inside
.
They are robbed in different ways: they open them on the spot, they take them away and open them in a secret place, they try to break them into them. Sometimes it ends tragically - but for the robbers themselves. One resident of Petrozavodsk tried to open an ATM using gas, but died due to the explosion.
Law enforcement agencies often detain entire gangs who make a living by opening ATMs and stealing cash from them. Thus, one of these gangs opened 22 Sberbank ATMs in 2022, stealing more than 16 million rubles. But they were able to pull it off because they hacked the ATM security system
.
But hacking ATMs is practically pointless - and almost no one succeeds, because:
- cash is stored in cassettes in a well-secured area;
- the ATM is extremely heavy and it is very difficult to transport it in a passenger car;
- ATMs are equipped with video surveillance systems, and any robber can be identified;
- even if you get to the cassettes, they are equipped with a trap with indelible paint
, which remains on both the money and the attacker; - When placing money in cassettes, the banknote numbers are registered, and subsequently it is quite easy to calculate the loot using them.
Regarding self-service terminals
, they usually also have security systems, and given that they are collected quite often, the potential “catch” is simply not worth the risk of imprisonment for many years for theft.
But, alas, this does not stop potential robbers - news about an attempt to hack or steal an ATM appears in news feeds almost every week. And almost always these attempts are unsuccessful.
.
Important Definitions
Robbery is often confused with extortion, robbery or theft. However, these are completely different crimes for which, accordingly, different types and limits of punishment are established.
Robbery is always the open theft of someone else's property (Article 161 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Wherein:
- theft is considered to be the unlawful gratuitous seizure of property, which is committed by a criminal with a selfish motive;
- selfish motive - the desire of the criminal to profit from stolen property, i.e. sell it, use it for personal purposes, transfer it to another person, having your own interest in such a transaction.
Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation “On judicial practice in cases of theft, robbery and robbery” dated December 27, 2002 No. 29 (hereinafter referred to as Resolution of the RF Supreme Court No. 29) provides additional clarifying characteristics of robbery:
- theft of property during robbery is committed in the presence of the owner of the property or someone who legally uses it;
- theft of property during robbery can be committed in the absence of the legal owner, but in full view of strangers;
- The criminal, at the moment of committing the robbery, realizes that those present understand the illegality of his action. Whether law-abiding citizens are trying to stop the robber at this moment does not matter.
Rob a bank without leaving home
As we already understood, bank branches are real fortresses with serious security, and there are very few successful attempts to rob them. But, unfortunately, Russian banks care much less about information security issues, and cyber police units are also not omnipotent.
The most typical example: in February 2016, Moscow Metallinvestbank lost 667 million rubles
. The terminal (computer) that managed the bank's correspondent account with the Central Bank simply began transferring money to third-party accounts, and there were several recipients.
They managed to return everything except 200 million rubles - the hackers managed to cash them out or transfer them further, where traces of the money were lost. But they managed to find the culprits - just 3 months later, 50 people from the Buhtrap hacker group (which was responsible for thefts totaling 1.8 billion rubles) were detained.
On average, hackers usually steal 140 million rubles from banks, and in several cases more than the bank's authorized capital was stolen. In just one year in 2016, cybercrimes involving banks were recorded totaling 2.5 billion rubles.
It will not be possible to find out any details - since banks prefer not to disclose them
. Only Metallinvestbank, Russian International Bank and Altynbank spoke about the facts of remote theft of money; the rest prefer not to disclose losses.
Thefts from banks are very different from thefts from the accounts of ordinary people and companies. The fact is that a transfer from an account in one bank to an account in another does not take place immediately, and it can be stopped in the process. If you transfer to an account in the same bank, this can also be calculated. Therefore, they steal from banks directly from a correspondent account with the Bank of Russia
– then the money finally leaves this bank.
It is difficult to solve such crimes, since money is withdrawn through hundreds and thousands of accounts of ordinary citizens
who do this for a small percentage of what they shoot.
The problem, experts say, is in the general level of information security of banks, especially small ones. Even a novice IT specialist can sometimes find a couple of security problems and “pull” from the server, for example, a list of clients and authorization data.
And a massive data leak from banks
, including from private ones - the first sign that there are security problems in the Russian banking system.
Theft in the highest offices of banks
But only its manager or owner can really steal a lot from a bank. Yes, that’s right: the owner of the bank does not own the money that is deposited in it, but he may well make it disappear from the bank
.
Over the past 6 years, the Bank of Russia has closed more than half of the banks, and many of them lost their licenses due to signs of withdrawal of funds, and most carried out questionable transactions. For example, they provided loans to related parties or executed deliberately fictitious payment orders.
The most high-profile recent case is a criminal case against the former owners of Promsvyazbank Alexey and Dmitry Ananyev
. The Bank of Russia decided to rehabilitate the bank when a serious shortage was discovered in its capital. This bank became one of three (including Otkritie and B&N Bank) that were nationalized and transferred to the Banking Sector Consolidation Fund.
Subsequently, it turned out that the Ananyev brothers, 1 day before the decision to reorganize the bank, organized the embezzlement of the bank’s property in the amount of more than 66 billion rubles and 575 million dollars. That is, this is about 50 times more than the largest amount stolen in a bank robbery!
The businessmen themselves ended up abroad (and this, according to them, was a planned departure), and do not agree with the decision of the law enforcement agencies.
Another high-profile case is related to the bankruptcy of Ugra Bank
, in connection with which one of the shareholders, Alexey Khotin, was detained. He is accused of stealing bank money in the amount of 7.5 billion rubles. The former director of the bank's Moscow branch was detained in the same case. In total, the “hole” in Ugra’s capital reaches 143 billion rubles.
, the Master Bank case was very serious
It was deprived of its license in 2013 due to large-scale questionable transactions, and its former owner is accused of causing damage in the amount of 61 billion rubles.
According to investigators, he stole a large sum from the Bank of Moscow.
its president Andrei Borodin and two vice-presidents. They are accused of stealing 14.5 billion rubles over 3 years - they issued obviously bad loans and conducted unprofitable foreign exchange transactions. Now the Bank of Moscow has been merged with VTB.
As you can see, most of those accused of such crimes are still “on the run”, and their cases continue to be investigated
. Perhaps, in reality, some of them are not to blame, and the lack of capital is simply the consequences of the ineffective work of the bank and its management.
No. 10 – “The Real McCoy”
- Year: 1993
- Country: United States of America
- Cast: Gaillard Sartain, Val Kilme, Terence Stamp, Zach English, Kim Basinger, Raynor Shiny
The main character of the film is a true professional in her field. She's a safe cracker. But during one of the robberies she failed and ended up in jail for 6 years. After serving her sentence, she decided that she would never get involved in robbery cases again. But, as you know, life cannot be predicted; it prepares new surprises for us. So for McCoy, life threw up challenges. The accomplices who framed her 6 years ago kidnap the heroine’s son and demand for his release that they return to the thieves’ business. The thirst for revenge and the desire to free her son forces her to rob the bank again.
How do bank clients suffer from robberies?
For an ordinary client, a bank robbery means practically nothing: money is usually stolen from vaults and cash desks (in cash) or from correspondent accounts (by bank transfer). In all these cases, this is money that is already in client accounts
. In other words, as soon as the client deposited cash into the cash register, it went to his account - and then anything can happen with this cash, but it does not affect the client’s account in any way.
Of course, if the bank owner decides to steal a couple of tens of billions of rubles, the bank may lose capital and be declared insolvent. But then the client is also not threatened with losses - he will receive money from his accounts from the DIA (but no more than 1.4 million rubles for each).
A special case is if the client was robbed inside a bank branch
before he deposited money into the account or immediately after he withdrew it. In this case, the bank will not be responsible for the money. The only option is if the money was withdrawn from a card to which the appropriate insurance is connected.
But the consequences of theft from a safe deposit box can be much more serious.
The fact is that such thefts occur regularly, and banks often stipulate the terms of the contract in such a way that they are not responsible for the loss.
So, the contract can be of two types:
- storage agreement – the bank describes all valuables and is responsible for their safety;
- a safe deposit box rental agreement - in fact, the bank simply rents out a safe and does not bear any responsibility.
Accordingly, the bank’s liability for theft in both of these cases will be different.
If money is stolen directly from the client's account
(for example, from a card), then the bank’s liability depends on the circumstances of the theft. If the client himself provided the security code to the attacker, he will not receive any compensation. And if a debit occurred from the client’s current account without his knowledge at all, then the bank must be responsible.
Plan A: Subtle.
Get into the car and drive into the tunnel through which the storage collection vehicles will pass. Hurry up, you need to be there before 8 am. As soon as the trucks appear, drop the police hedgehogs and drive forward, you need to wait for the vans to pass over them.
Make the collectors get out of the vans, get into the cars and get to the federal storage facility.
A very intense cut-scene awaits you for the next couple of minutes, but everything will be fine.
Next, you just have to follow the storage manager, nothing complicated.
As soon as you leave the bank with gold, Merryweather soldiers will immediately start looking for you, no surprise. Switch control to Franklin and clear the way for cars, do not allow Michael and Trevor's vans to meet the army vehicles.
As soon as the cash-in-transit vehicles arrive and transfer the gold to the tuned Gauntlet muscle cars, the Merryweather soldiers appear, and you'll be in for a great shootout.
Get into the cars and follow your friends, keeping up with the main column.
Two trucks will be waiting for you in the tunnel, drive the car inside.
Now all that remains is to get to Michael’s house, and this will complete the mission.
To complete the mission Huge Jackpot - Subtly 100% (Gold Medal) you need:
- At least 20 of your opponents must die from an accurate headshot.
- Change traffic lights less than 10 times.
- The accuracy of your shots should be at least 60%.
