- 7 weeks ago
Building Bad Season 1 Episode 10 - Full Episode
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Short filmTranscript
00:00A charming and brilliant thief nicknamed the roof man goes in an epic robbery spree.
00:07Most of his targets were fast food restaurants and big box stores.
00:11And his ingenious methodology was consistent for every heist.
00:15A gang of thieves makes up with millions of dollars worth of jewelry stolen from one of Germany's most iconic landmarks.
00:23Several days prior to the break-in, the thieves cut through one of the grills with a portable hydraulic cutting device.
00:29A Mexican cartel establishes an advanced network of closed-circuit TV cameras in the city of Raynoza.
00:37Some of their cameras were operated wirelessly through the internet and others were hardwired,
00:41sending footage along coaxial or ethernet cables to a sophisticated command center.
00:46By doing so, they went from being watched to being the watchers.
00:52The world's most inventive criminal minds.
00:56Lawless ingenuity, born out of greed.
01:00From back alleys to the high seas.
01:04Secret structures.
01:07Custom-built vehicles.
01:09High-tech innovation.
01:11What happens when engineering genies ends up on the wrong side of the law and starts building bad?
01:19On January 5th, 2005, a birthday party celebration in Charlotte, North Carolina for a 40-year-old mother of three was crashed by unwanted party guests.
01:41Several police officers arrived to arrest the birthday girl's boyfriend, John Zorin.
01:48But John Zorin was an alias.
01:50His real name was Jeffrey Manchester.
01:53And he was wanted for crimes committed across nine different states.
01:57He was arrested and charged with multiple offenses, from breaking and entering to kidnapping.
02:04And eventually sentenced to 47 years in prison.
02:07Jeffrey Manchester was a brilliant thief and escape artist who had committed over 40 robberies without firing a single shot.
02:16Most of his targets were fast food restaurants and big box stores.
02:21And his ingenious methodology was consistent for every heist.
02:26Manchester observed the routines, schedules, and physical layout of his targets.
02:31Like someone studying for a final exam.
02:33And his mode of entry through the roof of each store earned him the nickname, Roof Man.
02:39With meticulous planning and an abundance of charm, the Roof Man enjoyed a crime spree that lasted almost a decade, beginning with a series of robberies targeting McDonald's outlets.
02:53All McDonald's restaurants across the country were essentially identical, from design and construction, right down to the work schedules and routines of his employees.
03:02Manchester studied the layout of a typical McDonald's until it became a kind of mental blueprint for him.
03:07He knew where the safe was kept, he knew where the walk-in fridge was located.
03:11He also knew when the restaurant was likely to be busy, and when it wasn't.
03:16He typically chose very late nights or very early mornings.
03:20In other words, when the McDonald's was closing for the evening or opening the next morning.
03:25It was when the restaurant either had few customers or no customers at all.
03:30He carried a nylon bag filled with the tools he'd need to carve a hole in the roof of the McDonald's.
03:36After he finished cutting the hole in the roof, Manchester dropped down 10 or 15 feet and rounded up the surprised employees.
03:47He stole all the cash from the restaurant's registers, and he marched the employees into the walk-in refrigerator and locked them inside.
03:55Manchester's method for the McDonald's heists allowed him to commit the same crime in different cities across the country.
04:03One of the reasons why McDonald's is so successful is their strict adherence to routines and efficiencies.
04:10The food is prepared exactly the same way at the same time.
04:14But that applies to other aspects of daily operations.
04:17For example, money is put into the safe at the same time each night.
04:22This mechanization is great for a fast food franchise, but it also provides an unintended weakness that a thief like Manchester can leverage.
04:33In many ways, it was the perfect crime.
04:35It allowed Manchester to refine and hone his strategy and skills for over a year.
04:40With each robbery, he got better and quicker.
04:43But unfortunately, he also got a bit overconfident and careless.
04:47On May 20, 2000, the roof man decided to strike twice at one evening at two different locations.
04:58But the mistake he made was that his North Carolina targets, Belmont and Gastonia, were only 10 miles apart.
05:04And since by that time his criminal M.O. was known to the authorities, there was already a heavy police presence after that first robbery.
05:12The other mistake he made was at the second robbery in Belmont.
05:16After emptying all the cash from the safe, he didn't secure the walk-in fridge properly.
05:21So the employees got out much faster than usual and called the police right away.
05:28Manchester was caught and he was sentenced to up to 45 years in the Brown Creek Correctional Institution in North Carolina.
05:35Faced with that heavy sentence, he started planning his escape immediately by leaning into his well-honed robbery skills.
05:44For four years, Geoffrey Manchester was an ideal prisoner.
05:48And his good behavior earned him a position in the prison's metal shop.
05:53But it was all part of a larger plan.
05:57Every day a delivery truck came to the shop at the exact same time to pick up beds, lockers and other items built by the prisoners.
06:04Manchester secretly scoped the truck and he discovered rails running almost the full length underneath the vehicle.
06:10He then cut a length of plywood that would fit on top of the rails, with enough room for him to squeeze in across the platform.
06:18He painted the bottom of the plywood black to camouflage it with the rest of the truck's underside.
06:23Manchester knew the shift schedules of the prison guards.
06:27He knew the daily routines of the prisoners.
06:29He knew the key blind spots in the prison security system.
06:33So, plan was, on the chosen day, he was going to slip out of the prisoner line and sneak back into the shop where the truck was being loaded up.
06:41He decided the breakout would happen on June 15th, 2004.
06:47It was a rainy day, which was also part of his plan, as the guards were less likely to do a thorough search of the underside of the truck.
06:54At 3.30pm, the vehicle left the prison and the next head count wasn't until 4pm.
07:01By that point, the roof man had made his escape.
07:04Authorities believed Manchester would likely head back to his home state of California to connect with his family, but he had other plans.
07:12While he was in prison, Manchester was told by fellow inmates that sentences for commercial burglary were less severe in North Carolina.
07:22So, he traveled to an area about 40 miles northwest of Charlotte.
07:26Clearly, his game plan included more store lists.
07:30But he was facing a much bigger challenge at this point.
07:34Not only did the authorities now know the identity and methodology of the mysterious roof man,
07:39but Manchester was an escaped fugitive.
07:42Manchester had to change up his heist game, but he also needed to remain undetected and hidden while he planned and carried out his next series of robberies.
07:52For his new hideout, Manchester selected the Triangle Shopping Center in Charlotte, a complex of several big box stores that were all connected.
08:02Specifically, he chose a section of the Toys R Us store behind a large bike rack.
08:07And just as he had done to gain access to McDonald's through the roof, Manchester used hand tools to dig a cubby hole in the wall behind the rack and carved out just enough space for him to live in.
08:20The entrance to his cubby hole was well hidden from view, both from staff and customers.
08:25But he had to wait until store closing to venture out and get food.
08:28For the first few weeks, he subsisted solely on the baby food he found in the Toys R Us shelves.
08:33The roof man discovered that he could build a tunnel directly to the store adjacent to Toys R Us.
08:42And as luck would have it, it was an abandoned Circuit City.
08:46He could move undetected between both stores and he built trap doors for each entrance that blended in with the walls.
08:55On the Circuit City side, he found a new location for a larger living space, a four foot by ten foot area under the stairwell.
09:00He even installed a smoke detector and piped in a rerouted water supply from Toys R Us.
09:07With his hideout secure, Manchester was ready to start planning his next heist.
09:12He chose the obvious target, the Toys R Us store itself. And just as he'd done in the past, Manchester first studied the patterns and routines of the store's employees.
09:24Only this time, he used the Toys R Us technology as his surveillance system.
09:27He added baby monitors to the existing surveillance cameras in the store to track the movements of the security guards from his hiding spot.
09:36It didn't take long for him to learn the rhythms of the building and determine when it would be least busy with customers.
09:42In the late fall of 2004, Geoffrey Manchester started to venture out in public, using an alias and making connections with members of the Charlotte community.
09:57He actually joined a Presbyterian church just a few hundred yards away from his hideout location and he introduced himself to everyone as John Zorin.
10:04At one of the singles events, he met and started dating a member of the congregation, a single mom named Lee.
10:12Manchester's planned heist of the Toys R Us went down on December 26th.
10:17However, two employees did manage to slip away during the robbery and call police.
10:23Things went south from there when an off-duty sheriff's deputy arrived on the scene.
10:28Manchester panicked, punched the deputy, stole her gun and fled the scene.
10:32The police found no trace of Manchester during their initial search of the scene and the secret hiding place where he'd been living remained hidden for another week.
10:45It wasn't until January 2nd, 2005 that his stairwell bedroom was discovered during a routine inspection of Circuit City.
10:53After his earlier assault on the sheriff's deputy, the authorities were certain the Toys R Us robber was none other than the roof man himself.
11:04This was confirmed when a fingerprint lifted from the secret hiding location in Circuit City matched the prints of the wanted fugitive.
11:11Cops distributed pictures of Manchester throughout the community and members of the Presbyterian Church identified him as John Zorin.
11:22Manchester's girlfriend was informed of his criminal life and she agreed to help authorities set the trap that would result in his apprehension.
11:29On January 5th, police arranged for him to come to Lee's supposed 40th birthday party. The polite roofman, Geoffrey Manchester, didn't let her down and the police were waiting for him.
11:43Manchester was arrested and convicted on additional charges and is currently serving time in a Raleigh, North Carolina prison until 2036.
11:55But his incredible robbery spree and his ability to avoid capture are a testament to one criminal's ingenuity and resourcefulness.
12:03On November 25th, 2019, security guards at Dresden, Germany's Green Vault watched in horror as a closed circuit TV showed two men pulling off one of the largest jewel heists in European history.
12:29European history.
12:31The guards weren't armed and in the event of a robbery, they had specific instructions not to intervene.
12:36They were supposed to call the police and just sit tight until the police got there.
12:40So, those guards just watched the robbery go down on a monitor in the basement, completely powerless to stop it.
12:49When the first police officer got there, just nine minutes after the break-in, the thieves had vanished,
12:54along with an estimated $130 million worth of jewelry, stolen from one of Germany's most iconic landmarks.
13:03The Green Vault is part of the Dresden Castle, which was built sometime in the beginning of the 15th century,
13:09although the structure's origins go back to the year 1200, when it was more of a fortified tower than a castle.
13:16The castle served as the hub of power for Saxon princes and kings for hundreds of years until it was destroyed by fire in 1701.
13:27The complex was then reconstructed by Augustus the Strong, who filled it with exotic jewels,
13:34gold knives etched with the heads of lions, mother of pearl goblets, and coconuts inlaid with precious stones.
13:42Entire rooms were strewn with rubies, sapphires, and emeralds.
13:48Around 1723, Augustus wanted to showcase his collections and converted part of the castle into a museum,
13:55one of the first in Europe. He named it the Green Vault.
14:01During World War II, Allied forces launched a devastating three-day bombing attack on Dresden.
14:07With the intent of forcing a German surrender, tens of thousands were killed and the city was leveled,
14:13the castle and Green Vault included.
14:15The Nazis had transferred the contents of the museum at the onset of the war to keep them safe,
14:22but when the conflict was over, the Soviets took them away and didn't give them back until 1958.
14:28The castle was eventually restored in the 1990s, and a new Green Vault museum with state-of-the-art security systems opened in 2004.
14:37So how could the burglars get in?
14:40The windows of the complex were protected by iron grills,
14:43which presented a significant challenge for anyone wanting to break in without attracting attention.
14:50So several days prior to the break-in, the thieves cut through one of the grills with a portable hydraulic cutting device.
14:56Hydraulic cutters are extremely effective tools that use the power of pressurized fluid.
15:01A piston inside the tool pushes the liquid downwards, and as it enters a small space, the pressure intensifies.
15:09The liquid then transfers this force to another piston, which is pushed upwards, and this force moves the blades of the cutter.
15:16They could pretty much cut through anything, so it was a wise choice by the gang to use.
15:20They cut eight struts out of the grill, and then reattached the piece that they had cut out using adhesive tape so the grill would appear intact.
15:30They had gotten over the first hurdle without detection.
15:33The day before the heist, surveillance video captured four bearded men wearing sweatpants and sneakers, walking through the eight rooms of the green vault.
15:44They even used audio guides to pretend to be tourists, but one thing stood out.
15:50They seemed to spend an awful lot of time inspecting the display cases in the jewelry room.
15:54That's the only room with permanently installed showcases made out of borosilicate safety glass.
16:01Most glass is made of silica, which is sand, soda ash, and lime, whereas borosilicate glass has an additional ingredient called boron trioxide.
16:11This added compound makes for a product that's much stronger than standard glass, and resistant to temperature stress.
16:17Shockingly, the specifications of the display case glass in the museum were readily available online.
16:25A simple Google search using green vault and display glass brought up a link to the manufacturer with the information about what type of product was used.
16:34And in a further blunder, the museum's website even offered a virtual tour disclosing sensitive security-related details.
16:42The police would later discover that the perpetrators had made good use of the online information related to the green vault.
16:52Leading up to the robbery, the thieves purchased a Mercedes E-Class and an Audi A6 using fake personal details.
16:59What they did next was rather ingenious. They stole license plates that were from the same model of cars as the ones they bought.
17:08They put plates from a taxi on the Mercedes and then wrapped it in beige foil, which is the color of Dresden's cab.
17:15And then they put a taxi sign on the roof.
17:17So if the cops got suspicious and ran the license plates, they would come back as a legitimate taxi. It's actually very clever.
17:23Five days before the robbery, the gang broke into a Rhodes and civil engineering office at the nearby Augustus Bridge over the Elbe River.
17:35They went to the office room, took only the fire extinguisher and threw it into the Elbe.
17:41It seems pretty harmless, but this was actually a key part of the heist plan.
17:46Inside the building, there were control cabinets belonging to a Dresden energy supplier.
17:52The thieves somehow knew the location of the cabinets and on the morning of the robbery, they snuck back into the building and started a fire under the cabinets by letting gasoline in a cooking pot.
18:03So if anyone happened by the building, maybe a maintenance person or security patrol, they wouldn't be able to put the fire out because the extinguisher was at the bottom of the river.
18:11As the electrical cabinets caught fire, the street lights around the green vault began to fail, plunging the area into darkness.
18:22It was go time. The fire created a diversion. And while the cops and fire brigade were busy dealing with that, the gang sprung into action at the green vault, which, by the way, is only a couple hundred yards from the energy office.
18:34Shortly after 4am, the gang cut through a wrought iron gate from the 19th century on the west tower of the vault, likely using a similar hydraulic tool to what they used to cut the window grill.
18:45Once on the grounds, two men removed the cut piece of grill, leaving only the window to breach to gain access to the vault.
18:54But this presented a challenge because the window had no handle and no inner bolt, and it was made of safety glass with a fixed frame.
19:03But they'd come prepared with a hydraulic rescue cylinder. That's this device that's commonly used to push crumpled metal to free people who are trapped in a car after an accident.
19:14And after they used some DIY inventiveness, they had welded a tube to the base of this thing so that it could be hooked onto the window.
19:21Once they had that set up, the cylinder worked like a charm, and they were in.
19:24But the intruders tripped an alarm, alerting the guards, who did what they were instructed, and called the police rather than intervening.
19:34The guards didn't turn on the lights, which would have helped the security cameras pick up clean images of the burglars and made identifying them relatively simple.
19:42They later stated that they felt turning on the lights would have helped the thieves find what they're looking for more easily.
19:47Once inside the green vault, the perpetrators went straight for the jewel room where the museum's most valuable pieces were held.
19:56One of them produced an axe and smashed two display cases, so the borosilicate glass wasn't as effective a security measure as the museum's management had hoped.
20:07They stuffed all they could into a bag, and then in one final act, one of the men sprayed the area with a fire extinguisher to destroy any evidence they may have left.
20:17And just like that, they were gone.
20:20All told, the thieves made off with 4,300 diamonds and some of the vault's most valuable items, including a diamond-laden breast star of the Polish order of the White Eagle, a sword with a hilt containing nine large embedded diamonds, and 770 smaller ones.
20:37But the biggest loss of all was a 49-carat cushion-cut diamond known as the Saxon White.
20:45That thing alone was worth an estimated $12 million.
20:50As the police launched an investigation into the robbery, suspicion immediately fell on a Berlin-based crime family known as the Remo Clan.
21:00In the 1980s and 90s, there was an influx of refugees from Lebanon to Berlin.
21:08Many of them weren't allowed to work, so they turned to crime including prostitution, extortion, drug trafficking, and theft.
21:16The Remo Clan were part of this crime wave and eventually evolved into one of Berlin's most notorious gangs.
21:23And they were no strangers to the authorities. In 2014, they'd stolen a million dollars' worth of watches and jewelry from a Berlin department store.
21:32In 2017, they made off with a 220-pound gold coin from the Berlin Bode Museum.
21:37So, the green vault heist certainly fit their MO.
21:42The Mercedes getaway car had been captured on surveillance video fleeing the green vault and was found in Berlin following a tip from a citizen.
21:50DNA traces were found and attributed to Abdul Majid Ramo, Wazam Ramo, and Mohamed Ramo.
21:57Investigators also found DNA at the crime scene and connected it to the Ramo family.
22:01In total, six members of the Ramo clan were arrested after an extensive manhunt.
22:07It took almost two years to finally round them all up, but the police were confident that they had their men.
22:13On December 16, 2022, police were summoned to a meeting with Kai Kempgens, one of Germany's most respected criminal defense attorneys.
22:22On the table in Kempgens' office were 31 pieces of jewelry from the green vault. The implication was clear. The Ramos would return the stolen goods and confess for reduced sentences.
22:38A deal was struck and many of the items were returned. A little worse for the wear, as it appeared they had spent some time in water or treated with a cleaning agent of some kind.
22:48In court, the gang's confessions were often contradictory and their answers evasive.
22:55But German law dictates that once a deal is made, prosecutors have no choice but to stick to it. So, they had to take what they got.
23:02The members of the Ramo clan were sentenced to between four and six years in prison for their role in the green vault heist.
23:09The $12 million sacks of white was never recovered.
23:14According to Mexican authorities, on February 4, 2024, El Mano, boss of Los Metros, a faction of the deadly Gulf Cartel, ordered his henchmen to destroy ten closed searchers.
23:24Closed-circuit TV security cameras on the border city of Reynauza.
23:25Half of the cameras were shot out and the rest were destroyed by hijacked buses ramming into the poles they were attached to.
23:30These cameras were the eyes of the police, placed in critical locations in the city, enabling them to monitor cartels.
23:36Cartel activity.
23:37But Los Metros knew about the cameras and realized that they were interfering with the police.
23:39They were the eyes of the police, placed in critical locations in the city, enabling them to monitor cartel activity.
23:46But Los Metros knew about the cameras and realized that they were interfering with the police.
23:51which is mostly smuggling drugs across the border into the U.S.
24:07Around this time, the state police and Los Metros were in the middle of a bloody battle for control of the region.
24:12But El Mono, the ape, remained on the loose.
24:15Some viewed his ability to avoid capture as a clear sign that Los Metros was winning the intelligence war with security forces.
24:28The heavy reliance of both the Gulf Cartel and the local police on intelligence is why the Reynauza region has been embroiled in a counter-surveillance battle for most of the past decade.
24:40Counter-surveillance has always been important for Mexico's organized crime organizations.
24:44As seen in their sophisticated use of hawks or halcones as lookouts.
24:50Hawks are their eyes on the street from young teens to street vendors and taxi drivers.
24:56Anyone who could tip them off to police or military activity.
25:00The hawks are strategically placed to cover the entire city.
25:04Watching people, vehicles and places within a larger surveillance area.
25:09The city is divided into sectors and the hawks report back to safe houses, or centrales, where their information is collected and analyzed.
25:19On the streets of Reynauza, Los Metros' hawks have relied on cell phones and radio phones to communicate through a covert network until recently.
25:28The problem began when Los Metros' radio network was infiltrated and dismantled by local security forces.
25:38They arrested the cartel's hawks and raided their centrales.
25:42But the heaviest blow came when the security forces destroyed the cartel's radio towers and secondary antennas, or repeaters.
25:52With their radio network destroyed, in order to stay in business and keep their drugs in motion, the cartel had to evolve.
26:00They did it by capitalizing on advancements in video technology.
26:05By 2015, security forces in Reynauza had installed a network of surveillance cameras to safeguard the city streets.
26:13A plan that had been very effective in other Mexican cities.
26:17But with less than 60% of the intended 560 cameras installed, the cartels struck back.
26:23They offered rewards for the destruction of the cameras, and when a weakness in the security poles was discovered, many were knocked down.
26:33The Los Metros gang then stole the surveillance camera idea and installed their own network of video cameras throughout the Reynauza.
26:40By doing so, they went from being watched to being the watchers.
26:44Under the cover of darkness, the cartels secretly installed over 50 surveillance cameras on top of Reynauza's existing traffic and light poles.
26:56Along with the city's main intersections and thoroughfares, the cameras were put in strategic law enforcement locations,
27:04like the headquarters for the state police, the Mexican Navy, and the office of Mexico's Attorney General.
27:10By surveilling these critical sites, the cartel knew exactly when security forces were mobilizing.
27:18Los Metros' CCTV surveillance network in Reynauza was thought to be a first for Mexico's cartels.
27:25With it, they could both monitor and display the city's security force activity.
27:30That meant they could either watch in real time or view recorded footage afterwards.
27:34Some of their cameras were operated wirelessly through the internet and others were hardwired,
27:40sending footage along coaxial or ethernet cables to a sophisticated command center.
27:45It's estimated even their basic cameras could have a three-mile transmission range.
27:49And for night surveillance, the cameras were equipped with high-tech capabilities such as zoom,
27:54infrared imaging, and possibly various alert features and motion detection.
27:57The entire setup probably only cost a few hundred thousand dollars, a drop in the bucket for a drug cartel.
28:05The 50 cameras could be run and monitored around the clock with just six cartel engineers.
28:10So it was well worth it for the information they were now privy to.
28:13But in the cartel versus security forces surveillance game, any advancement by one side triggers a response by the other.
28:24In June of 2015, Reynauza police caught two gang members in the process of installing a camera onto an existing post.
28:33Once questioned, the two men led them to 37 other cameras that they had previously installed according to cartel orders.
28:44It stung the Gulf Cartel because these cameras were critical not only for the monitoring of local security forces,
28:52but also for their surveillance of Los Zetas, their bitter rivals.
28:55The counter-surveillance war in Reynauza continued. The Gulf Cartel found new ways to keep their surveillance operations secret.
29:06Over time, the cartel developed better methods of concealment.
29:10They disguised the cameras as streetlights and also as legitimate telecommunications hardware
29:15that could have been installed by state-sanctioned networks.
29:17The cartel also used another strategy to avoid detection, installing wireless cameras and stealing the necessary Wi-Fi from surrounding businesses and citizens.
29:30By hacking the internet signals, they were getting valuable intelligence completely on the sly.
29:37The Wi-Fi theft made the cartel's command centers harder to locate.
29:41It took the Special Operations Group of the Tomalipas State Police to discover the cameras.
29:47More than a hundred of them were discovered and dismantled.
29:51Just two weeks before, it had appeared that the cartel had the upper hand when they attacked several government-installed surveillance cameras.
30:00The Tomalipas State Governor, Francisco Garcia Cabeza de Vaca, gave an inauguration speech to a gathering of international law enforcement
30:07and praised his government's vaunted C5 program.
30:12C5 is the security program in every state that dispatches emergency services and controls an extensive system of surveillance cameras.
30:20In Tomalipas, in 2022, there were over 5,000 C5 cameras.
30:24But that was before the governor's speech.
30:29Because that same night, the cartels began a siege against those very same cameras.
30:34In La Riberaña, near the Mexico-US border, gunmen started shooting out the cameras at 9pm.
30:41Roughly three hours later in Reynosa, more C5 surveillance cameras were shot out.
30:46And dump trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles were used to either knock down camera poles or haul them down with chains.
30:54The next night, several camera poles were rammed when a bus full of students was hijacked.
31:00But the cartels weren't only capable of violence and brute force.
31:05They were proving to be adept at the use of sophisticated technology.
31:09They started using special scramblers to encode their transmissions so they could only be deciphered by their own receivers.
31:16They also used advances in the encryption and anonymizing of data, which is the process of removing personal identifiers from a dataset.
31:24When anonymization is performed, linking any information to a specific individual or individuals is almost impossible.
31:30The cartels' command centers had also evolved, becoming more flexible and temporary, so therefore harder to track.
31:39They developed mobile centrales, which were command centers set up in vehicles roaming the streets.
31:44In October of 2023, government agents tracked a vehicle that had been knocking out C5 surveillance cameras to a well-known hotel in Nuevo Progreso,
31:54a border town just east of Reynosa, where they discovered a high-tech command center in one of its rooms.
31:58The cartels' adaptability makes their command centers nearly impossible to eradicate, and their camera surveillance innovations complicate the matter even further.
32:11In Tijuana, Mexico, the Sinaloa Cartel figured out a simple but ingenious solution to the authorities discovering and dismantling their cameras on the city's utility poles.
32:20They started paying local residents and businesses rent for the right to install cartel surveillance cameras on their properties.
32:28This complicates the seizure of these cameras because they're on private property. Security forces now need a judge's order to investigate the premises and remove the cameras.
32:38And the future looks frightening, too. Some observers believe the next possible step in cartel counter-surveillance could be hacking into C5's security camera network undetected, and using it anonymously for criminal purposes.
32:52Authorities throughout Mexico are doing everything they can to combat the cartels' advances and counter-surveillance, but the recent violence in Reynosa and the continued freedom of Los Metro's leader El Mano speaks volumes about the cartels' sophistication and ingenuity in the intelligence war.
33:11On October 30, 1980, a week after a perfectly executed bank robbery in San Diego, California, two of the three members of the Stopwatch Gang, one of the most successful bank robbing outfits ever seen, were finally apprehended.
33:39While Stephen Reed and Lionel Wright sat in custody, the final member of the gang, Patty Mitchell, was on the lam, his whereabouts unknown. Along with him, most of the $283,000 they had stolen only a week prior.
33:58Their arrest brought an end to a decade-long crime spree during which the Stopwatch Gang robbed dozens of banks across Canada and the U.S.
34:06Their latest robbery at the Bank of America at 912 Garnet Avenue in San Diego turned out to be the biggest heist the city had ever seen.
34:13The Stopwatch Gang were meticulous, obsessive planners, leaving nothing to chance.
34:19But most importantly, they were inventive, employing tricks and feints to throw cops off the scent.
34:25So how did two of them end up behind bars?
34:28It all started in the early 1970s when the three men, Reed, Mitchell and Wright, were small-time criminals in Ottawa, Canada.
34:38Early on, they had a fairly lucrative operation stealing from warehouses.
34:45They even robbed $750,000 worth of gold from the Ottawa airport, which even today stands among the most infamous of heists in Canadian history.
34:57This robbery eventually landed them all behind bars, but not for long.
35:02Incredibly, within a few years, they'd all escaped from prison and relocated from Canada to St. Petersburg, Florida.
35:12Now that they'd had a taste of success, they turned their attention to banks.
35:16They began developing a particularly sophisticated MO where attention to detail and preparation were key.
35:23They abided by the philosophy that by being careful and doing all their homework, any weak link in the system would reveal itself.
35:31But unfortunately for them, sometimes life throws you a curveball.
35:35Their approach went something like this.
35:38From their base in St. Petersburg, they would drive to a different town, check into a motel and pick a bank to rob.
35:45They would then map out escape routes, memorize the timing of the different stoplights, as well as where there was potential of traffic and busy intersections.
35:56Using fake IDs, two of them would open accounts of the target bank and over the next few weeks, make frequent deposits and withdrawals.
36:05This allowed them to observe the bank's security patterns, guard positions, employee break times, and fault access.
36:12They would also rent safe deposit boxes to gain access to the vault and monitor it from the inside.
36:19What really characterizes them is their simple but truly ingenious ways of using resources available to them.
36:24For example, they came up with the idea of entering the bank with $1,000 and $20 bills.
36:29They would ask the teller to change them into hundreds, then observe where the big bills were kept, whether at the desk or somewhere else in the bank.
36:36They'd get more fake IDs and also acquire costumes to use on the day of the robbery.
36:41A few days before the operation, they'd leave town.
36:44Because they knew, the first thing investigators would do would be to pull the security footage from the preceding days to see if they could notice any suspicious activity.
36:54Mitchell insisted that every movement be clocked to the second, leading him to purchase the best stopwatch he could find.
37:01During the robberies, one of them would wear the stopwatch around their neck and yell,
37:06Time, exactly 90 seconds into the heist.
37:09This detail didn't go unnoticed.
37:11A witness reported it to the cops, then dubbed them the stopwatch gang.
37:17Mitchell was obsessed with the gang's press coverage and would read all he could get his hands on.
37:21He realized that witnesses would pick up very important or obvious details.
37:25So to turn their attention to rather unimportant details, they would do random things like put an orange hard hat in the rear window of the getaway car.
37:32This would cause witnesses to remember the hard hat, but not the make of the car or the plates.
37:37Truly a creative ploy on Mitchell's part.
37:41But they were smart enough to know that for every bank they robbed successfully, they were edging closer to the one job that would inevitably go wrong.
37:49So they decided they needed one massive payout, one which would allow them to lay low for a long time.
37:55So they set their sights on the Bank of America in San Diego.
37:58It was big, busy, and if you timed it just right, had bucket loads of cash.
38:04The gang learned that every Tuesday between 10.30 and 11 a.m., an armored truck would arrive in front of the bank.
38:11A security guard would then pick up three bags filled with cash and walk them back to the truck.
38:17These three bags became the stopwatch gang's next target.
38:23As usual, their preparation was perfect.
38:26Rather than running the risks associated with stealing a car, they decided to rent one.
38:30Although that could leave a paper trail, they figured it'd be a pretty thin one considering how many rental agencies there were in the state of California.
38:39Wright was creative in his use of public resources, and the library was central to the stopwatch gang's DIY attitude.
38:49Here, he went through the city's directory for everyone living within a 12-block radius of the bank.
38:55This way, he learned that A, there was no obscure police station in the area, and B, there were no residents or retired residents listed as a police officer.
39:07He also went to the local AAA where, as a member, he got access to the most detailed street maps available.
39:13They figured out the best escape routes, where they may get held up, as well as the most likely approach the police would take to the bank.
39:19On top of this, every corner of the bank was paced and repaced.
39:23Eventually, they had enough measurements to rebuild the bank dimensions in a vacant lot.
39:27Wright even found a book at the library that described how best to make a disguise or perform your own do-it-yourself temporary plastic surgery.
39:39He also went to an optometrist and got fake eyeglasses, claiming that he wanted two pairs of non-prescription glasses so he could reduce the glare from his computer screen.
39:48To listen out on the police, the gang obtained a portable radio scanner, which was a cutting-edge technology for the time.
39:56Scanners allowed users to pick up radio frequencies and listen to communications much like a radio, allows you to tune in to different channels by changing the dial.
40:06Once they figured out what frequency the San Diego police used, the stopwatch gang could eavesdrop on their every word.
40:14The device was plugged into the cigarette lighter of the getaway car and would alert Mitchell to any dispatcher calling all cars to a robbery in progress.
40:24Three long blasts on the car horn would signal to the other two to abandon the heist and run.
40:32The only incriminating evidence would be the stolen money, their costumes, and the paperwork for the rental car.
40:38But they had planned everything to a T.
40:40Knowing the city emptied bins between 1 and 1.30 every day, they were going to toss everything into a bin on their way to the airport, ensuring it would disappear.
40:48On September 23, 1980, the day of the heist arrived.
40:54They were wearing dapper suits and dark makeup in order to disguise their true appearance.
40:59They had even gone so far as to tape up their fingers with band-aids to avoid leaving prints at the scene.
41:07Reed and Wright entered the bank shortly before they expected the truck to arrive.
41:12Mitchell waited outside in a getaway car with random red racing stripes down its sides.
41:19Wright began filling out deposit slips to make it look as if he was doing something, while Reed waited on an appointment with financial planners.
41:28He even carried a briefcase in which he had two loan applications.
41:33But the thing was, the truck wasn't showing up.
41:36As their nervousness began to set in and the sweat began to pour, their makeup started running, and the bandages on their fingers started loosening.
41:45Wright must have filled in 100 deposit slips by the time the truck finally arrived 28 minutes later.
41:50By then, they were about to abort the whole operation.
41:53When the security guard finally appeared with the bags, Reed stood up, pressed his .357 Magnum into the guard's belly, and calmly said,
42:01This is a robbery. Don't be a hero, or I'll kill you.
42:05That was all it took.
42:06The guard handed over the cash, and they hightailed it out of there $283,000 richer.
42:12Their plan had worked perfectly.
42:18Almost.
42:20After the robbery, the police had no leads.
42:22The stopwatch gang were like ghosts.
42:24But remember how they were supposed to throw away all the costumes and paperwork in a garbage bin?
42:29That was supposed to be empty between 1 and 1.30?
42:32This didn't go according to plan.
42:36The evidence did end up in the dumpster, but Wright was supposed to ensure that the garbage truck picked it up.
42:43As fate would have it, as he was waiting, a police car pulled up close to him.
42:47Too nervous to stick around, he left before the truck arrived.
42:52After he fled, a couple looking for aluminum cans randomly discovered the stash before the dumpster was emptied.
42:58Inside, they found wigs, fake beards, make-out, license plates, and a few Bank of America bags.
43:06But most importantly, they found the paperwork for the car rent, which also contained a copy of a fake driver's license,
43:13a photo of one of the robbers, and a partial fingerprint.
43:18This is what proved to be their undoing.
43:22Had they not had to wait those extra 28 minutes for the truck, chances are the cop wouldn't have been so close to Wright that he could have made sure the evidence was properly disposed of.
43:35This is a true example of Murphy's Law, just downright unlucky.
43:41The leads found in the dumpster allowed law enforcement to locate and arrest Stephen Reed and Lionel Wright, who were both sentenced to 20 years in prison.
43:50Paddy Mitchell, on the other hand, managed to avoid capture, ran off with the money, and continued committing armed robbery for the next 14 years before he was finally caught.
44:01Due to their meticulous planning and creative methods, the Stopwatch Gang will go down in criminal history as one of the most exceptional bank robbing crews ever assembled,
44:12only to be undone by something as mundane as bad timing.
44:31the stifled flags would be put into the
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