#CinemaJourney
#BuildingBad
#BuildingBad
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Short filmTranscript
00:00A criminal gang led by Tommy Carmichael
00:03spends 20 years stealing from Las Vegas slot machines
00:06using homemade instruments.
00:09The cops searched 12 homes around Vegas
00:11and discovered sketches of devices designed for tampering
00:14and even several slot machines
00:17for testing out the different scams.
00:19Mexican cartels divert millions of dollars worth of gas
00:23from government-owned pipelines.
00:25Stealing fuel on a massive scale
00:28was not without challenges.
00:30It required expertise in engineering and extraction
00:34and insider's knowledge of the industry
00:36and tactical skills to avoid detection.
00:40A team of experienced criminals executed daring robbery
00:44at the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Company in London.
00:49Whoever was bold enough to rob the company
00:51would need logistical skills
00:52and intimate knowledge of the security systems
00:55and decades of experience with elaborate heists.
00:58The world's most inventive criminal minds.
01:05Lawless ingenuity, born out of greed.
01:08From back alleys to the high seas.
01:13Secret structures.
01:15Custom-built vehicles.
01:16High-tech innovation.
01:18What happens when engineering genies
01:21ends up on the wrong side of the law
01:24and starts building bad?
01:27On July 22, 1999, the FBI and New Jersey State Police apprehended Tommy Glenn Carmichael,
01:46the suspected mastermind behind a highly lucrative scam
01:50that involved tampering with slot machines across the United States and beyond.
01:55That very same day, on the other side of the country,
02:01Las Vegas police arrested six of Carmichael's associates
02:05after receiving information that a gang of known slot machine cheats
02:10with prior convictions were up to their old tricks.
02:13The cops searched 12 homes around Vegas
02:17and discovered sketches of devices designed for tampering
02:20and even several slot machines for testing out the different scams.
02:25These people have been doing their homework.
02:27Authorities believe that the gang had made off with more than $5 million
02:30in what's considered one of the most sophisticated
02:33and widespread slot machine scams in history.
02:36And it was all thanks to Tommy Carmichael's innovations.
02:40Born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Carmichael had a knack for electronics as a child,
02:46which ultimately led him to open a television sales and repair store later in life.
02:53The store was a success right off the bat,
02:55as it was the first of its kind in Tulsa.
02:58So there was no competition.
02:59But as time wore on, more and more businesses that offered the same products and services
03:05started springing up all over the city.
03:07And it wasn't long before bankruptcy was staring Carmichael in the face.
03:12Well, as the old adage goes, it's always darkest before the dawn.
03:18And sometime in 1980, a friend of Carmichael's visited his store
03:22and brought with him some items that piqued the TV repairman's interest.
03:27A Bally slot machine and a tool for relieving it of its coins.
03:33Carmichael must have seen his destiny in that moment
03:35because he abruptly closed the store, moved to Las Vegas,
03:39and spent the better part of the next 20 years
03:42becoming one of the most prolific slot machine thieves in history.
03:49In 1963, Bally Manufacturing introduced the Money Honey,
03:53widely regarded as the slot machine that popularized play and modern casinos.
04:00This machine was a game changer.
04:02It had lights and sound effects and added a little bit more excitement for players.
04:06But the real impact was that it was equipped with a 2,500 coin hopper,
04:11which was huge.
04:12Because before this, if a player won a jackpot,
04:15they had to wait for a casino employee to verify the win.
04:18And then they were paid in catch.
04:21The problem with this system was that there was a finality to it.
04:25Like the game was over and the winner would just walk out of the casino with their jackpot.
04:31But the hopper in the Money Honey meant that players could be paid out instantly.
04:35And the odds that they would keep playing increased,
04:39which was advantageous to the casinos.
04:41Eventually, slot machines began to bring in more money for casinos in Las Vegas than any other games.
04:47The first year this happened was 1981,
04:49not long after Tommy Carmichael's fateful meeting with his friend in Tulsa.
04:54Upon his arrival in Las Vegas,
04:57Carmichael set about testing his friend's tampering device in the local casinos.
05:02Known as a top-bottom joint,
05:04the tool was a simple and effective way to trick slot machines.
05:07The top-bottom joint consisted of two parts,
05:12the top and the bottom.
05:13The bottom was a short piece of guitar string,
05:15and the top was a small piece of metal that was twisted to look like a number nine.
05:21Around this time,
05:23slot machine payouts were triggered by the completion of an electrical circuit.
05:27Levers with metal contacts on the end were attached to the spinning wheels
05:31and rested against a fixed circuit board,
05:33also covered with contacts.
05:34When the jackpot was won,
05:36the contacts lined up and the circuit was activated,
05:40triggering the motor of a hopper,
05:41which dispensed the coins.
05:44Top-bottom joints were used to basically hotwire slot machines,
05:48tricking them into thinking a winning circuit had been completed.
05:51The guitar string was inserted into the bottom left corner,
05:54where it came into contact with the circuit board,
05:56drawing a small current and transmitting it through the inner workings of the machine.
05:59The top piece of metal goes into the coin slot.
06:03That completes an electrical circuit that's strong enough to trigger the hopper's motor,
06:08and then it spews out all these coins.
06:11On his first day using the top-bottom joint method,
06:15Tommy Carmichael absconded with around $35 in nickels.
06:19While not exactly a huge score,
06:22he sensed an opportunity.
06:23Slot machines contained about $75 in those days.
06:29So if Carmichael ran the scam all day,
06:32he could steal about $3,000,
06:35equivalent to roughly $5,000 in today's money.
06:38Not a bad day's work.
06:41But soon enough,
06:42casinos became aware of the top-bottom joint tampering,
06:45and pressured slot machine manufacturers to rectify the problem.
06:48In response,
06:49they rolled out new designs with what are called slow-blow fuses
06:52that would shut the machine down whenever someone tried to hotwire it.
06:57Once the new machines started popping up all over Vegas,
07:00Carmichael's operation became less and less profitable,
07:03and he had to spend time searching for old machines to steal from.
07:08This meant that he would sometimes have to hit several slot machines in the same casino,
07:12which, unsurprisingly,
07:14caught the attention of the authorities.
07:15On July 4th, 1985,
07:19Tommy Carmichael was caught cheating a slot machine near the Las Vegas Strip.
07:24He was arrested by Nevada Gaming Control Board agents
07:26and sentenced to five years in prison.
07:30Now, you would think that this might have scared Carmichael
07:33into giving up his life for crime,
07:34but the exact opposite thing happened.
07:37He took this as evidence that he needed to keep stealing from casinos,
07:40but just had to find a better way to do it.
07:43Enter the monkey's pot.
07:44Carmichael's first real original invention,
07:47it wasn't much to look at.
07:49Really, just a thin bent metal rod with a wedge-shaped end.
07:53But what it lacked in aesthetics,
07:55it more than made up for an effectiveness.
08:00Carmichael designed the monkey's paw
08:02to capitalize on a design flaw that he discovered in the coin counting mechanisms of traditional slot machines.
08:08The tool was stealthily inserted into the machine's payout chute and then manipulated to trigger the switch that activated the coin release mechanism.
08:16It was quick, could be done covertly, and by Carmichael's account, extremely lucrative.
08:21He claimed that he could make $1,000 an hour using the monkey's paw.
08:24But advances in technology made that tool obsolete after just a couple of successful years.
08:31New slot machines didn't have mechanical counters anymore.
08:34Instead, they had these optical sensors that used light beams to count coins.
08:39The machines had a transmitter that would send a beam of light across the coin's path to a receiver.
08:45The coins were counted as they passed through the beam.
08:48And when the appropriate payout was reached, the outflow stopped.
08:51So, Carmichael had to go back to the drawing board.
08:53In response to the introduction of light beam counting technology, Carmichael invented yet another simple device that would allow him to continue robbing the casinos blind.
09:06The light wand, as it was known, was little more than a small light bulb powered by a camera battery.
09:11But when it was shined up into a slot machine, it blinded the sensors so the machine didn't count the coins it was dispensing.
09:18Because the light beam was never broken, it would just keep spitting out money.
09:22Carmichael would deposit a nominal amount of money in a machine, say $50, and then immediately request a cash out.
09:30Then he'd use the light wand to disable the counters and turn $50 into several hundred, or whatever he had the guts to take, all in the blink of an eye.
09:40And not only did he use the wands to rip off casinos, Carmichael started selling them off to other cheats for $10,000 to $12,000 a pop.
09:47Given that they only cost a few bucks to make, that's a pretty tidy profit.
09:52Some hustlers claim that they could earn up to $10,000 a day using Carmichael's invention.
10:00And industry insiders would later say that the light wand cost the casinos more money than any other device in history, with losses estimated to be in the hundreds of millions.
10:10Obviously, they had to do something to stem the tide.
10:16After the discovery of the light wand technique, casino owners and slot machine manufacturers fought back with an upgrade to the light sensor technology.
10:25They introduced a delay so that when a light wand caused the beam inside the machine to stay on, when it shouldn't be, the delay would determine that at that point, there should be no light, and the machine would shut down.
10:37It was a nice try, but Carmichael quickly figured out that if you just turned off the light wand during the lag time, that delay didn't do anything.
10:45So it was back to business, and business was booming.
10:49Tommy was at the peak of his powers, he was earning huge amounts of money, and he was living large.
10:55Maybe all the success made him overconfident, because he got a bit sloppy, and in 1996, the authorities almost caught him red-handed with a light wand in a casino.
11:07He managed to throw the device across the room, and although security was able to locate it, there was no way to prove it was his, and the act wasn't caught on any security camera footage.
11:19It was a narrow escape, but make no mistake about it. Tommy Carmichael was now being watched very closely.
11:27On top of the increased security from authorities, Carmichael's scam faced another challenge, a new generation of slot machines that ran on a cashless payout system.
11:38These were known as ticket-in, ticket-out machines, and when you won, they didn't give you money directly.
11:44They gave you tickets that you could redeem for cash.
11:47But the thing is, those machines still accepted coins and bills as payment.
11:52So Carmichael bought one, and pretty quickly, he found a design flaw in the optical counting system, and once again, he built a tool that could fool that machine.
12:03He called it the tongue, because it kind of resembled a tongue-depressor.
12:06After a coin was deposited, it fell past three counter lights, and Carmichael figured out that he could trick the counter by inserting a tongue and maneuvering it back and forth in front of the middle light.
12:17By making this light blink, the machine would think coins were going through.
12:21The tongue was Carmichael's Mona Lisa.
12:26It could trigger a machine into giving hundreds of dollars' worth of credits in seconds, and then all he would have to do was cash the ticket out, like having his own personal bank machine.
12:37But unfortunately for Tommy, he would never get to use his greatest invention to steal from the casinos.
12:46In 1999, one of Carmichael's associates was caught using a light wand.
12:51Which was confiscated and sent to the FBI.
12:55The feds started an investigation, and when Carmichael's associates' phone records were pulled, Tommy's numbers showed up all over the place.
13:01So they tapped his phone, and they pretty quickly overheard him asking colleagues to test the tongue in casinos to see if there were any potential problems with the device.
13:11At this point, the authorities ascertained that the tongue could cost casinos millions of dollars if put into circulation.
13:20So they had no choice but to put an end to Carmichael's career as one of the greatest slot machine cheats in history.
13:29In 2000, Tommy Carmichael pled guilty to running an illegal gambling enterprise and was sentenced to 11 months in prison.
13:37A lenient sentence, because he agreed to show the authorities how his devices worked.
13:43Upon his release, Carmichael was barred for life from entering any casinos in Las Vegas.
13:49He moved back to Tulsa, where he died in 2019, at the age of 68.
13:54On May 4th, 2023, hundreds of government agents raided eight properties connected to a fuel theft terminal in Hidalgo, Mexico,
14:12as part of an ongoing effort to stop the rampant stealing of oil and gasoline.
14:17What they discovered led to an even bigger operation and a few surprises.
14:25One of the properties had this hidden entrance to a tunnel that went 12 feet below the surface.
14:30And at the other end, it opened up to reveal a larger area of government-owned fuel lines.
14:36The authorities found illegal taps drilled directly into the pipelines and large cisterns carrying 10,000 gallons of fuel surrounding the pipes.
14:47Someone had been secretly siphoning off gas and collecting it in these plastic tanks.
14:54The stolen fuel was not the work of petty thieves.
14:58It was a small example of a billion-dollar industry run by dangerous and powerful Mexican cartels across the country.
15:06Well-organized criminal groups were devising ingenious ways to outsmart the state-owned gas company and cripple the economy.
15:15Oil smuggling and fuel theft in Mexico go back 100 years to the 1920s,
15:20when that country was the world's second largest oil producer.
15:24Back then, most of that oil production was foreign-owned by companies like Shell and Standard Oil Company, California.
15:30And that meant that most of the oil got exported and most of the money also left, which meant very little profit for Mexicans.
15:39In 1938, Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas signed an order that expropriated most of the foreign-owned assets.
15:46And he created a single-state-owned company called Pemex.
15:50One of the main goals of Pemex was to consolidate and control the fuel industry and to keep most of the profits in the country.
15:57And by that metric, Cardenas was successful.
16:00Pemex grew into one of the world's biggest oil companies, boasting billions in revenue and a network of over 400 miles of pipeline.
16:07But the massive success of Pemex came with unforeseen consequences.
16:14Since 2013, Pemex had lost $19 billion due to fuel theft.
16:21To maintain its business, the company had to borrow 110 billion pesos a year from the central bank.
16:29Between 2004 and 2009, there was an average of 271 thefts per year.
16:34But between 2018 and 2020, the average was 12,000 per year.
16:39So the question is, how do you account for the sudden jump in fuel theft?
16:43And how are the cartels getting away with it?
16:46In the past, Mexico's fuel thieves consisted of small bands of outlaws who operated independently.
16:52You'd have a single person stealing fuel in a really rudimentary way.
16:57They'd have basic tools.
16:58They would shovel out a pipeline.
17:00They would drill a hole.
17:01They would siphon gas into a bucket or a jerry can.
17:04And then they would just sell that stolen gas on the black market for a reduced price.
17:08Basically, they were distributing fuel to poor Mexicans at a fraction of the cost.
17:13However, there was a limit to how much an individual could make with basic tools and methods.
17:20By the early 2010s, the small bands of outlaws were overtaken by larger criminal organizations.
17:28There was potential for big money to be made, if you could get away with it.
17:33So powerful and dangerous drug cartels like Los Edes moved into northeastern Mexico
17:38and started to take control of the illegal fuel trade.
17:40The cartels put the smaller gas thieves out of business in the usual way.
17:45They used violence, they used fear, they used intimidation.
17:47And very quickly, they discovered that the fuel business was just as profitable as drug smuggling.
17:54And it didn't mean you ever had to get close to that U.S. border.
17:58But stealing fuel on a massive scale was not without challenges.
18:03It required expertise in engineering and extraction.
18:07An insider's knowledge of the industry and tactical skills to avoid detection.
18:13The cartels used large crews made up of locals, including many former fuel thieves,
18:18who already had hands-on experience drilling and siphoning pipelines.
18:23One main extraction method was called hot tapping.
18:27The laborers would dig or chisel out an underground Pemex pipeline with picks and shovels.
18:31Then solder a valve directly onto the pipe's surface.
18:35Then they'd use an auger to drill a hole right through the pipe to the gas.
18:40With high-pressure gasoline spewing in their faces,
18:43they would then screw a hose onto the valve to control the flow
18:46and direct the gas into a large plastic tank.
18:49It took only a minute to fill a tank capable of holding over 300 gallons.
18:53The filled tanks were then loaded up into pickup trucks
18:56and driven to the various black market distribution centers.
19:00Most of the day's profits went directly to the cartel bosses.
19:03And all those people doing all of that work were only getting about 40 bucks a day.
19:08It was dirty and dangerous work.
19:11And the workers frequently paid for it with their lives.
19:15Any gasoline spills could ignite and flash.
19:17All it took was a single spark or a cigarette butt.
19:20The entire area could go up in flames.
19:22On one occasion, a huge pipeline fire scorched the town of San Martin Tesmalucan
19:26when a spark turned the streets into rivers of fire.
19:3029 people died, including 13 children.
19:33With incidents of fuel theft skyrocketing,
19:36Mexican authorities started to suspect the cartels were getting help from the inside.
19:42They were right.
19:44Pemex employees at all levels, from engineers to executives,
19:47were acting as paid informants.
19:49They provided maps of pipeline networks as well as tip-offs
19:52to let the cartels know when to expect fuel to be flowing.
19:55When police discovered a pipeline that had been vandalized and drilled,
19:58they frequently found evidence of specialized valves,
20:01professional equipment that could only have been supplied by Pemex employees.
20:06Between 2006 and 2015,
20:08over 100 of them were arrested in connection with fuel theft.
20:13At its peak, the illegal fuel trade was responsible
20:16for over 23,000 barrels of stolen gas or oil every single day.
20:22More cartels were moving in to exploit the system,
20:25like the deadly Jalisco new generation cartel.
20:28In 2018, the government unveiled a strict policy to help stop the hemorrhaging of gas and oil.
20:35The first step was a series of investigations of Pemex employees
20:39and a restructuring of that whole company to root out corruption.
20:44Hundreds of miles of Pemex pipelines were also closed temporarily,
20:47and then when they reopened, they were heavily guarded by the Mexican military.
20:51To beef up surveillance, drones like Arcturus T-20s were used to catch thieves on site in real time.
20:58These drones can detect the presence of hydrocarbons and send alert signals to the police.
21:03But once again, the cartels devised ingenious methods to bypass both the military and drone technology.
21:10Since security forces on foot patrol could only be effective above ground,
21:15the solution required the cartels to go underground.
21:19The new plan involved the creation of a drainage system that could divert fuel from pipelines
21:23to a secret holding or storage area through a network of connected tunnels.
21:27The tunnels were built anywhere from 10 to 25 feet below the surface,
21:32and they were reinforced with wooden planks and beams.
21:35That meant they were structurally sound.
21:37They were also well lit, and they were ventilated,
21:40so the thieves wouldn't get sick from the gas fumes.
21:43Once a pipeline was successfully hot-tapped,
21:46they ran a series of thick hoses through the tunnel system
21:50and up to tanks inside a storage house.
21:53These anonymous-looking warehouses were either built by the cartels
21:58or they simply set up shop in abandoned buildings,
22:02sometimes just 150 yards from the main Pemex refineries.
22:08In 2020, Mexican authorities were starting to catch up
22:12to the cartels' new approach to fuel theft.
22:15A series of raids across northeastern Mexico
22:17revealed just how entrenched the cartels' operations were in the area.
22:23And you have to understand, these cartels are so big
22:26that they become part of the economic system.
22:30Locals are hired to do the dirty work,
22:32executives get paid off,
22:34and of course, regular citizens start to rely on these lower gas prices
22:38that they can get on the black market.
22:40And this is part of what makes it such a complex problem.
22:42As much as people hate all that violence,
22:45there are tangible benefits for them
22:47of having a cartel in their community.
22:50So what evolves is a classic Catch-22.
22:54The more fuel that's stolen,
22:56the more the gas companies are forced to raise the price at the pumps,
23:00which just increases demand for the cheaper stolen product.
23:04In the case of the 2023 raid in Hidalgo,
23:09police arrested 10 people found in the tunnel.
23:12But one raid, or even a series of raids,
23:15can only do so much
23:16when the cartel's stranglehold on the region remains airtight.
23:20On April 7th, 2015,
23:34security guards from the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Company in London
23:37returned to work after Easter weekend
23:40to discover the entire underground vault
23:43have been raided and ransacked.
23:45The sheer audacity and scale of the heist
23:49left authorities stunned.
23:52Over 70 safety deposit boxes
23:55had been opened and cleaned out.
23:57And these were all basically mini-safes
23:59that had to be cracked apart.
24:01The thieves made off with gold, cash, and jewels
24:04worth roughly 18 million U.S. dollars.
24:07To access the vault,
24:11the robbers bypassed the massive door to the safe entirely.
24:14Instead, they just bored directly
24:17through the six-foot reinforced cement wall,
24:20creating a hole large enough for anyone to climb in and out.
24:24Not surprisingly, the heist caused a media frenzy
24:27and immediately sparked a high-profile investigation.
24:31In the days that followed,
24:32both the public and the police had questions,
24:35starting with,
24:36How did the thieves commit such a brazen theft
24:39from a notoriously secure location?
24:42The Hatton Garden heist
24:44was the work of a small gang of career criminals
24:46in their 60s and 70s.
24:49And they pulled it off with careful planning,
24:51an expert knowledge of surveillance technology
24:53and engineering.
24:55Hatton Garden was London's renowned jewelry district,
24:59essentially the symbolic centerpiece
25:02of jewelry commerce in the U.K.
25:04The Safety Deposit Company
25:06was a long-standing institution in the district,
25:10in part because its clients appreciated
25:12the amount of discretion, anonymity,
25:14and security the company promised.
25:17After hours, the vault was protected
25:19by a large combination-coated door
25:21and thick cement walls.
25:23The rest of the building was outfitted
25:25with CCTV cameras and alarm systems.
25:27And both doors leading into the building
25:29were kept locked.
25:31Based on the security protocols alone,
25:34the Safety Deposit Company
25:35was not an easy target for the would-be thieves.
25:38Whoever was bold enough to rob the company
25:40would need logistical skills
25:42and intimate knowledge of the security systems
25:44and decades of experience with elaborate heists.
25:49Decades of experience was exactly
25:51what Daniel Jones, Terry Perkins,
25:53and John Collins brought to the table
25:55when they met at a North London pub
25:58to plan the ultimate robbery.
25:59The Castle Pub was a semi-regular spot
26:04for these career criminals
26:05to get together and scheme.
26:0767-year-old Terry Perkins
26:10was the former ringleader
26:12of the famous 1983 Security Express job.
26:16He'd escaped from prison
26:18and had been living under the radar ever since.
26:22Danny Jones was a 60-year-old eccentric
26:25with a passion for the latest tools,
26:27techniques, and tricks in the crime business.
26:30He was also an army fanatic
26:32and kept himself in top physical shape.
26:36John Kenny Collins, who clocked in at 75 years old,
26:39was a fireworks importer
26:41with an extensive criminal past.
26:43He had a reputation as a classic London villain,
26:46and despite being semi-retired from a life of crime,
26:49he wanted to get back in the game.
26:52The three crooks identified
26:54the Safety Deposit Company
26:55as the perfect target.
26:57It contained enough cash and valuables
27:00in one location
27:01to ensure their economic security.
27:04Plus, they would be out doing other recent heists,
27:07thereby cementing their notoriety
27:09in the criminal world.
27:12To maximize their timeline,
27:14they decided to stage the robbery
27:15over the Easter holiday weekend.
27:18Security guards were likely to set the alarm
27:20on Thursday, April 2nd,
27:22at around 6 p.m.,
27:23and not return until the following Tuesday morning.
27:27Perkins, Jones, and Collins
27:29each had their part to play,
27:31but they had to add more members to the gang
27:34to fill in some of the key responsibilities.
27:36The first ex-con they chose was Brian Reeder,
27:40nicknamed the Governor,
27:42brought in as a veteran of multiple high-profile burglaries.
27:46They also needed someone with up-to-date expertise
27:49in picking locks and jamming security systems,
27:52and the best man for that job
27:54was this mysterious figure
27:56known only to the thieves
27:57by the name Basil.
28:01The team completed.
28:03The first challenge facing the Hatton Garden gang
28:06was accessing the Safety Deposit Company building
28:09without attracting attention
28:10or setting off alarms.
28:12John Collins spent several weeks
28:16gathering intelligence
28:16for potential weaknesses in the security system
28:19and carrying out reconnaissance
28:21on the layout of the building.
28:23He parked Mercedes at a distance
28:25to monitor the routines of the staff,
28:27customers,
28:28and other merchants in the area.
28:30To bypass security protocols
28:32and disable the alarms,
28:34the team needed a jamming tool or device
28:37that could disarm the system
28:39without tampering with its electrical supply.
28:41To that end,
28:43Basil provided a dummy alarm panel,
28:45which was originally used for training purposes
28:47and had a mobile jammer built right in.
28:51For the basement vault,
28:53Danny Jones had spent the previous couple of years
28:55researching industrial tools and drills,
28:58mostly by watching YouTube videos online.
29:01He landed on a heavy-duty diamond-tipped drill
29:04called a Hilti DD350,
29:06which cost just north of $5,000 U.S. dollars.
29:11Once inside the vault,
29:13the team would need a powerful tool
29:15to knock the safety deposit boxes off the wall.
29:18Since the boxes were bolted directly into the concrete,
29:21they acquired a hydraulic battering ram for the job.
29:26On Thursday, April 2nd,
29:28the gang was ready to strike.
29:30Shortly after 9 p.m.,
29:32Basil slipped into the safety deposit company building
29:35without setting off any alarms.
29:39Basil used a bypass tool to enter the building,
29:42a skeleton key device
29:44that is available to consumers for about $16 U.S. dollars.
29:48Once inside,
29:49he entered the security code
29:50which he'd gleaned from early reconnaissance.
29:52This was the first of several weaknesses
29:54in the company's system.
29:56They hadn't changed the code for over seven years.
29:58From there,
30:02Basil disabled the main elevator,
30:04which was sitting on the second floor.
30:06He shimmied down to the basement
30:08and pried open the metal exterior elevator doors,
30:11which created access for the rest of the team
30:14and their equipment,
30:15including several wheelie bins
30:17for carting off the stolen goods.
30:19The advantage to going in that way
30:22was that it bypassed two regular doors
30:24and a stairwell
30:25and all the alarms
30:26that were connected to all of that.
30:28But just to make sure,
30:30Basil cut the antenna
30:31and the wires of that alarm
30:33before letting the other gang members inside.
30:38Despite the extra precaution,
30:40Basil's initial breach
30:41of the exterior elevator door
30:43sent a weak radio signal
30:44to the security company
30:46monitoring the system.
30:47When the security company
30:50called the owner
30:51of the safety deposit company,
30:53he alerted one of his guards
30:54to go check it out.
30:56And here's where the team got lucky.
30:58In a plot twist
30:59straight from a Hollywood heist flick,
31:01the security guard arrived
31:02to find both exterior doors
31:04closed and locked,
31:05just the way the team had left them.
31:08So he'd called in a false alarm.
31:10Now safely inside,
31:12the team arrived at the vault door
31:14and affixed Danny Jones'
31:16diamond-tipped Hilti drill
31:17to the cement wall
31:19and drilled three adjoining holes
31:21just large enough
31:22for one man to squeeze through.
31:25Once they got inside the vault,
31:26they prepped and positioned
31:28the hydraulic ram
31:29to knock the safety deposit boxes
31:31clear of the wall.
31:31But then they hit
31:32this massive problem.
31:35The ram's pump was broken,
31:37which meant the entire battering ram
31:39was out of commission.
31:40They needed to replace that pump
31:42and they needed to do it fast.
31:45Just 11 hours after
31:46they first entered the building,
31:48the Hatton Garden gang emerged
31:50on Good Friday morning
31:51without a single jewel
31:52or stack of cash
31:53in their possession.
31:55Jones and Collins
31:55traveled to Twickenham
31:56to replace the pump
31:57and the team returned
31:59to the scene
31:59on Saturday night
32:00with Collins arriving
32:02first in his Mercedes
32:03to make sure
32:03the coast was clear.
32:06They were successful
32:07on their second attempt
32:08and the powerful ram
32:10knocked the entire wall
32:11of the deposit boxes
32:12to the ground.
32:13With crowbars
32:14and handheld angle grinders,
32:16they jimmied open
32:17more than 70 boxes
32:18and quickly stuffed
32:20empty sacks
32:21with jewelry and gold,
32:22which they then ushered
32:24up and out
32:24in wheelie carts.
32:27But the journey
32:28was far from finished.
32:29With 70 boxes worth
32:31of stolen goods
32:31in their possession,
32:33the Hatton Garden gang
32:34faced another major challenge.
32:38They've got bricks of gold,
32:40they've got expensive jewelry,
32:41they've got stacks
32:42and stacks of cash
32:43and it's all very valuable,
32:45but it's also
32:45really cumbersome
32:47and it's really conspicuous.
32:49Exactly how to transport,
32:51store,
32:52and launder
32:53all of that loot
32:54while avoiding detection
32:56was now
32:57their number one job.
32:59They decided
32:59to break up the treasure
33:01into smaller amounts
33:02and find unusual
33:03but secure
33:05temporary hiding spots
33:06from inside
33:07casserole dishes
33:08to beneath covered
33:10burial plots
33:11and tombstones.
33:13Unfortunately,
33:14a combination
33:15of some costly errors
33:16plus good detective work
33:18eventually caught up
33:19with the gang.
33:21While they had
33:22successfully disabled
33:23the safety deposit building's
33:25interior cameras,
33:26Basil and the rest
33:27of the team
33:28failed to identify
33:29security cameras
33:31outside the building.
33:33Not only were the robbers
33:34caught arriving
33:35and leaving the scene,
33:37but their vehicles
33:38and license plates
33:39were captured
33:40and identified,
33:41linking them
33:42to their owners.
33:43To make matters worse,
33:45back when John Collins
33:46and Danny Jones
33:47had replaced
33:47that busted ram pump
33:49on Good Friday,
33:50well,
33:51in his haste,
33:52Jones had signed
33:53the paperwork
33:54V Jones
33:55and written down
33:57most of his actual address.
34:00Armed with the suspect's
34:01names and locations,
34:03police discreetly placed
34:04probes and bugs
34:05on Collins and Perkins' cars.
34:07In a matter of days,
34:08the two crooks
34:09were caught on tape
34:10boasting about the heist
34:11and discussing how they were
34:12planning to divide
34:13the proceeds.
34:15On the day of the scheduled
34:17exchange of goods
34:18and funds,
34:19police moved in
34:20and arrested
34:21the veteran criminals
34:22in their cars
34:23and homes.
34:25In March of 2016,
34:27the five men
34:28were sentenced
34:28to a combined
34:2934 years in prison.
34:31In March of 2021,
34:43a massive joint police operation
34:45between Belgium
34:45and the Netherlands
34:46intercepted 14 tons
34:48of cocaine
34:49and seized over
34:50a million dollars
34:51in cash
34:52from European drug traffickers.
34:55The sheer scale
34:56of the coordinated effort
34:57was unprecedented
34:59for the two countries.
35:02The operation
35:03was carried out
35:03by about 1,600 officers
35:05who searched
35:06more than 200 premises.
35:08In addition
35:08to the drugs
35:09and cash,
35:11police confiscated
35:1115 illegal weapons,
35:13eight luxury vehicles
35:14and various stolen
35:15police uniforms.
35:16In total,
35:17nearly 50 people
35:18were arrested.
35:19The bust wasn't
35:20the result
35:20of a police informant
35:22or this undercover agent
35:23sting operation.
35:25What happened is
35:26the police
35:26had been tracking
35:27and monitoring
35:28encrypted messages
35:29among the traffickers
35:30for several weeks
35:32because they had hacked
35:34into their secret
35:35communication network.
35:36The key word here
35:37is encrypted.
35:39The criminal syndicates
35:40were able to communicate
35:41smuggling operations
35:42on custom-engineered phones,
35:44confident that the messages
35:45were private and secure
35:47because they were encrypted.
35:49That is,
35:50the sender's message
35:50would be indecipherable
35:52to anyone but the recipient.
35:54Encrypted phones
35:55and the companies
35:56who made them
35:57all offered the same thing
35:58to its customers,
36:00messages that were secret,
36:02safe, and secure.
36:03The challenge
36:04for the designers
36:05of the phones
36:06was to create
36:06the most sophisticated
36:08security system possible
36:09and to stay one step ahead
36:11of police interception.
36:14Encrypted phones
36:15are also referred to
36:16as PGP phones
36:18for pretty good privacy.
36:20They looked
36:20just like a regular smartphone
36:22but they were engineered
36:22for one function
36:23and one function only
36:24to allow users
36:26to communicate
36:26without a third party
36:27being able to read messages.
36:30The encryption process
36:31was pretty straightforward.
36:32Every sent message
36:33was automatically changed
36:34into a series of random numbers
36:36and digits.
36:36The scrambled message
36:37was sent to a server
36:38where it waited
36:39for the intended recipient
36:40to decrypt the message
36:41with a private key.
36:43The PGP devices
36:44could only send messages
36:45to each other
36:46so you can't send a message
36:47from one of them
36:48to a phone
36:48and you can't send one
36:49from a phone
36:49to the PGP device.
36:51Plus all the apps
36:53and functions
36:53on those PGP phones
36:54are taken off.
36:55There's no camera,
36:56there's no Bluetooth,
36:57there's no microphone
36:57and that means
36:58that the phone user
36:59can't be tracked
37:00or spied on
37:01because of the phone itself.
37:04Creators of encrypted phones
37:05frequently installed
37:06a wipe or kill switch,
37:08a secret code
37:09that when entered
37:10erased all the phone's data.
37:12This was useful
37:13for criminals
37:14who for example
37:15were suddenly trapped
37:16or caught by police.
37:17It essentially destroyed
37:18all the digital evidence.
37:21Encrypted phone devices
37:22were entirely legal
37:24and available
37:24to any consumer
37:25who valued their privacy
37:27but the technology
37:28was soon adopted
37:29by organized crime syndicates
37:31as the most effective way
37:33to avoid detection.
37:35There's an impressive history
37:36of codes and keys
37:37being used by crooks
37:38to disguise
37:39or hide their activities
37:40from the police
37:41going back to the invention
37:42of the wiretap
37:43in the 1890s.
37:45The wiretap
37:46was the creation
37:47of a police officer
37:48and former telephone company
37:49employee
37:49who suggested adding
37:51a secret circuit
37:51to the phone lines
37:52used by known criminals.
37:54The New York City mayor
37:55approved it
37:55and for two decades
37:56the use of wiretapping
37:57flourished without
37:58the public's knowledge.
38:00When news of that practice
38:01leaked to the public
38:02in 1916
38:03they howled
38:04in protest.
38:06Plus
38:06that meant criminals
38:07got quickly to work
38:08devising new methods
38:10to avoid detection
38:11and one of those
38:11involved creating
38:12a coded language
38:13or cipher
38:14written on a small
38:15piece of paper.
38:16Basically
38:17for these messages
38:18the letters
38:19of each word
38:20were shifted
38:20three places
38:21in the alphabet.
38:23In the 1990s
38:24many Mexican drug cartels
38:26adopted encryption methods
38:27to scramble communication
38:28on their regular cell phones.
38:30They were using
38:31open source software
38:32which meant
38:33anyone had access
38:34and could use it
38:35if they knew how.
38:37By the late 2010s
38:39the encrypted phone industry
38:40was big business
38:41since the manufacture
38:43and sale of the devices
38:44was technically
38:45still legal.
38:47As it became clear
38:48that encrypted phones
38:49were being used
38:50by criminals
38:50all over the world
38:51the real question
38:52became one of responsibility.
38:54Is the provider company
38:55responsible for how
38:56their product is being used
38:57especially when they're
38:58notified and warned
38:59by law enforcement?
39:00It's a legal question
39:01but that's also
39:02a moral question.
39:04The Dutch company
39:05Enicom is a good example
39:06of a PGP phone manufacturer
39:08that was ultimately
39:09convicted of purposely
39:10facilitating crime.
39:11by selling encrypted phones.
39:14The Enicom network
39:15was used by around
39:1619,000 people
39:17most of them
39:18based in the Netherlands.
39:20All communications
39:20ran through
39:21Enicom's own infrastructure
39:23which made it more difficult
39:24to intercept users' messages
39:25but it also aroused
39:27suspicion from the authorities.
39:30The Dutch National
39:31High Tech Crime Unit
39:32discovered that
39:33Enicom's servers
39:34were actually housed
39:35in Canada.
39:36So they obtained
39:36a search warrant
39:37from Canadian authorities
39:38to copy all the server data
39:40and Dutch analysts
39:41were able to
39:41decrypt the messages.
39:44In 2016,
39:45Enicom's owner
39:46Danny Manupasa
39:47was arrested
39:48and sentenced
39:49to four and a half years
39:50in prison
39:50along with several
39:52of its users
39:53which included
39:54drug traffickers,
39:55hitmen
39:55and convicted murderers.
39:57Prosecutors were able
39:58to prove that
39:59Manupasa
40:00purposefully facilitated crime
40:02as the company
40:03was well aware
40:04that its user base
40:05consisted mostly of people
40:07engaged in illicit activities.
40:09The fall of Enicom
40:12should have served
40:13as a warning
40:14to would-be criminals
40:14to treat PGP phones
40:16with caution
40:16but other provider companies
40:18were paying close attention
40:19as well
40:19so they devised
40:20new technologies
40:21to make their phones
40:22even more secure.
40:24One of Europe's
40:25most popular providers
40:26was a company
40:26called EncroChat
40:27which boasted
40:29a wide user base
40:30including around
40:3010,000 users in the UK.
40:32The devices had
40:33a wipe function
40:34that could delete
40:34all messages instantly
40:36and a dual boot
40:37which allowed users
40:38to toggle between
40:39regular phone use
40:40and the secure mode.
40:42EncroChat was marketed
40:43to users
40:44as having its servers
40:45housed in a secret
40:46secure offshore location
40:48but as was the case
40:50with Enicom
40:51they weren't being
40:52totally honest.
40:54In fact,
40:55the servers were located
40:55in a well-known
40:56data center in France
40:58in the city of Roubaix.
41:00In January of 2019
41:02the French National
41:04Gendarmerie
41:05along with Dutch police
41:06executed a warrant
41:08to secretly copy
41:09EncroChat's servers
41:10but they went
41:11one step further.
41:14In April 2020
41:15they hired engineers
41:16to create and deploy
41:17malware
41:18into the EncroChat's
41:19network
41:20but it was disguised
41:21as a software update
41:22that went out
41:23to all the user phones.
41:25This malware
41:25disabled the wipe feature
41:27and gave authorities
41:28access to all
41:29the stored texts.
41:30It's a lot of data
41:31and a lot of evidence.
41:33The malware also allowed
41:34police to read messages
41:35coming into the server
41:36in real time
41:37for a period of two months.
41:39It was like the police
41:40were all sitting down
41:41at the table
41:41with the crooks
41:42as they discussed
41:43and planned their
41:43illegal drug shipments.
41:45By July of 2020
41:46the owners of EncroChat
41:48discovered that their network
41:49had been infiltrated
41:50and hacked by the police
41:51so they quickly
41:52shut down the entire network
41:54but by that point
41:55the authorities had
41:56all the evidence
41:57they needed to make
41:58thousands of arrests.
41:592,800 in the UK alone.
42:04By the late 2010s
42:05the cocaine business
42:06in Europe
42:07was outpacing
42:08the heroin trade.
42:09Ever since
42:10Colombian cartels
42:11lost control
42:12of the North American markets
42:13they shifted their focus
42:14to Europe.
42:16The cocaine business
42:17effectively became
42:18a shipping business.
42:20Customs officers
42:21estimated that
42:21fully half of Europe's cocaine
42:23was arriving
42:24through two main seaports
42:25Rotterdam in the Netherlands
42:27and Antwerp in Belgium.
42:29Thanks to intelligence
42:31gathered from criminals
42:31decrypted messages
42:32authorities learned
42:33that smaller European ports
42:35were fast becoming
42:36major hubs
42:36for cocaine shipment
42:37like Livorno in Italy
42:39and Vriesingen
42:40in the Netherlands
42:40and the police
42:41were using this intelligence
42:42to intercept shipments
42:44and arrest the traffickers.
42:46It was like a tech war
42:47between the traffickers
42:48and law enforcement
42:48and once again
42:49the European drug syndicates
42:51had to look for new
42:52and more secure
42:53communication networks
42:54so they could just stay
42:55one step ahead
42:56of the police.
42:57One of those networks
42:58was a provider
42:59called Sky ECC.
43:02The Vancouver Canada-based
43:04Sky ECC
43:05was so confident
43:06in its ability
43:07to provide secure connections
43:08that it offered
43:09a $5 million reward
43:11to anyone who could hack
43:12one of its phones
43:13in a 90-day period.
43:16Some of Sky ECC's
43:18security features
43:19included the ability
43:20to wipe a device remotely
43:21if the phone
43:22got into the wrong hands.
43:24It was also impossible
43:25to physically extract
43:27data such as contacts,
43:28messages,
43:29or call history
43:30from the device.
43:33By March of 2021,
43:35Sky ECC
43:36had around 70,000 users.
43:38Amazingly,
43:39and much to the surprise
43:40of the French police,
43:41the company's servers
43:42were also located
43:43in Roubaix, France
43:44along with EncroChat.
43:45But instead of using malware
43:47to hack the network,
43:48this time the police
43:49launched what is known
43:50as a protocol attack,
43:52which is essentially
43:52a way of tricking
43:53or deceiving the phone
43:54into revealing
43:54its private keys or codes.
43:56So they managed
43:57to dismantle
43:58its number one
43:58security feature.
44:00When the protocol attack
44:01proved successful,
44:02authorities intercepted
44:04and decrypted
44:04an enormous amount
44:06of exchanged messages.
44:08Millions of them.
44:09Literally millions
44:10of communications
44:11between thousands
44:11of criminals.
44:12and many of these
44:13the police were receiving
44:14in real time,
44:15which meant
44:16the most serious ones,
44:17the dangerous ones,
44:18required a police response
44:20as fast as possible.
44:22The Belgian
44:23and Dutch authorities
44:23set up command posts
44:24in Antwerp and Brussels
44:26to respond to decrypted messages
44:28revealing threats to life.
44:30It was overwhelming,
44:31the task of simply
44:32assigning threat levels
44:33to each and every message.
44:35Jean Epe,
44:36CEO of Sky ECC,
44:38was ultimately indicted
44:39in the U.S.
44:40for racketeering
44:41and the distribution
44:42of narcotics.
44:44The business was shut down,
44:46but chances are
44:47another service
44:48will pop up
44:49in its place.
44:50The U.S.
44:50The U.S.
44:51The U.S.
44:52The U.S.
44:53The U.S.
44:54The U.S.
44:55The U.S.
44:56The U.S.
44:57The U.S.
44:58The U.S.
44:59The U.S.
45:00The U.S.
45:01The U.S.
45:02The U.S.