Albert Spaggiari Albert Spaggiari ( December 14 , 1932 – June 8 , 1989 ) , nicknamed Bert , was a French criminal chiefly known as the organizer of a break - in into a Société Générale bank in Nice , France in 1976 . Earlier life . Spaggiari was born in Laragne - Montéglin in the Hautes - Alpes département . He grew up in Hyères , where his mother had a lingerie store . Spaggiari is reported to have committed his first robbery in order to offer a diamond to a girlfriend . Perhaps as part of a deal made with the authorities , he would later join a paratroop regiment during the Indochina War . He was not present at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu because he was imprisoned for robbery at the time . During the Algerian War he worked for the Organisation de l ' armée secrète ( OAS ) , a clandestine anti - de Gaulle and anti - decolonisation organization . Despite the fact that he was probably more a sympathizer than a real activist , Spaggiari was later sentenced to some years in prison for his OAS activities . During his imprisonment at the Santé , Spaggiari wrote his first autobiographic book " Faut pas rire avec les barbares " ( " One mustn ' t laugh with the barbarians " ) . He then supported the nationalist candidacy of Jean - Louis Tixier - Vignancour in the French presidential election , 1965 . In 1976 he was the owner of a photographic studio in Nice , living in a house in the hills over Nice named " Les Oies Sauvages " . But he apparently quickly became bored with his law - abiding middle - class life . Later accounts described him as cavalier and stylish . Heist . When Spaggiari heard that the sewers were close to the vault of the Société Générale bank , he began to plan a break - in into the bank . Eventually he decided to do it by digging into the bank vault from below . Spaggiari rented a box in the bank vault for himself and then put a loud alarm clock in the vault . He set the clock to ring at night in order to check the possible existence of any acoustic or seismic detection gear . In fact , there were no alarms protecting the vault because it was considered utterly impregnable ; the door wall was extremely thick and there was no obvious way to access the other walls . Spaggiari contacted professional gangsters from Marseille . Although it has never been verified , he probably got support from Gaëtano Zampa to build a team that was completed by some of his OAS friends , including would - be - assassin of Charles De Gaulle Gaby Anglade and con artist Jean Kay . His men made their way into the sewer s and began a two - month effort to dig an eight meter long tunnel from the sewer to under the vault . Spaggiari had taken many precautions during this long dig . His men worked long hours continuously drilling . He told his men not to drink coffee nor alcohol and get at least 10 hours of sleep every shift to avoid any danger to the mission . On July 16 , 1976 , during a long weekend due to Bastille Day festivities , Spaggiari ' s gang broke into the vault itself . They opened 400 safe deposit box es and stole an estimated 60 million francs worth of money , securities and valuables . According to some accounts , Spaggiari brought his men a meal including wine and pâté , and reportedly they sat down in the vault for a picnic lunch , after welding the vault door shut from the inside . The gang spent hours picking through the various safe deposit boxes . Before they left on July 20 , they left this message on the walls of the vault : " sans armes , ni haine , ni violence " ( " without weapons , nor hatred , nor violence " ) . This was Spaggiari ' s message to the world , implying that he considered himself to be something more than a common thief . Capture and escape . 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 interrogation he turned over the entire gang , including Spaggiari . When Spaggiari , who had been accompanying the mayor of Nice Jacques Médecin in the Far East as a photographer , returned to Nice , he was arrested at the airport . Spaggiari chose Jacques Peyrat , a veteran of the French Foreign Legion who belonged at the time to the National Front , as his defence attorney . 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 the " Catena " ( Italian for Chain ) that seems to have existed only in his fantasy . During his case hearings , Spaggiari devised an escape plan . He made a fictitious document which he claimed as evidence . He made the document coded so it had to be deciphered by the judge . He distracted judge Richard Bouaziz with this document and then jumped out of a 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 5000 francs cheque in the mail for the damage to his roof . Left - wing papers later claimed that Spaggiari had received help from his political friends , in particular from ex - OAS militants close to the mayor of Nice , Jacques Médecin . The accusations forced Médecin to go through a second round of voting at the local elections of 1977 . In 1995 , Jacques Peyrat accused Christian Estrosi , French minister and former motorcycle champion , of having been Spaggiari ' s driver . But later Estrosi proved that on that day he had been motorcycle racing in Daytona . Life in hiding . Spaggiari remained free for the rest of his life . He was sentenced " in absentia " to a life in prison . Reportedly he underwent plastic surgery and spent probably most of the rest of his life in Argentina . However , it is reported that Spaggiari came several times clandestinely to France , visiting his mother or his wife " Audi " . For the publishing of his last book " Le journal d ' une truffe " he gave an interview to Bernard Pivot for the TV program " Apostrophes " that was reportedly recorded in Milan , Italy . According to a CIA document declassified in 2000 and publicised by the National Security Archive , Michael Townley , the DINA international agent responsible for the murder of Orlando Letelier , a member of Salvador Allende ' s government , in Washington DC , 1976 , was in contact with Spaggiari . Information contained in the document suggests that Spaggiari ( code name " Daniel " ) conducted operations on behalf of DINA . Spaggiari was said to have died under " mysterious circumstances " . The press reported that his body was found by his mother in front of her home on June 10 , 1989 , having been carried back to France by unknown friends . However it now seems well established that his wife Emilia was with him when he died of throat cancer on June 8 , 1989 , in a country house in Belluno , Italy . She drove the corpse from Italy to Hyères and lied to the police ( it being a criminal offence to carry a corpse ) . Remains of the loot from the heist have never been found . Popular culture . French authors René Louis Maurice and Jean - Claude Simoën wrote the book " Cinq Milliards au bout de l ' égout " ( 1977 ) about Spaggiari ' s bank heist in Nice . Their work was translated in 1978 by the British author Ken Follett as " The Heist of the Century " ( also published as " The Gentleman of 16 July " and " Under the Streets of Nice " ) . To the outrage of Ken Follett some publishers brought it out as a new Ken Follett book , while it was in fact little more than a rushed through translation . Three movies were produced which were also based on the Nice bank robbery : The Canadian television series Masterminds created an episode reenacting the story of the robbery . A Czech movie Prachy dělaj člověka contains a reference to the heist , suggesting that one of the characters participated in it .