35 Eye-Opening Facts About Bank Robberies and the People Behind Them

In 2016, a Kansas man named Lawrence John Ripple robbed a bank and then waited in the lobby, later telling the investigators he'd rather be in jail than with his wife.

2. Sutton’s Law states that when diagnosing, one should consider the obvious. It is named after the famous American bank robber, Willie Sutton, who when asked ‘Why do you rob banks?’ replied, ‘Because that’s where the money is.’

3. A man was able to steal $10 million from a bank because its employees kept an important bank code on a post-it on the wall.

4. Catalan activist Enric Duran took out 68 loans from a total of 39 banks between 2006-2008, with no collateral, and no intention of repaying, and used the money to finance activist movements, as an act of 'financial civil disobedience.'

5. English broadcaster Jeremy Clarkson once published his bank account number and sort code to prove that the information couldn't be used to steal money. Someone used it to set up a monthly direct debit from his bank account to a charity.

In the 1972 United California Bank Heist, the robbers made away with $30 million in cash. They carefully covered their tracks by wiping down everything in their townhouse before they left. However, they forgot to start the dishwasher and therefore their fingerprints were found on dirty dishes.

7. In 2006, Bank of America had someone jailed for inquiring about the legitimacy of a check. The uproar cost Bank of America $50 million worth of withdrawals from irate customers.

8. In 2014, a Swiss Bank deposit vault filled with hundreds of Swiss coins was sold. It has been described as "the perfect gift for a real life Scrooge McDuck."

9. After committing a $5.4 million bank heist, Japanese robbers penned a thank-you note to the bank.

10. The Bank of Oklahoma building in Tulsa, Oklahoma is a half-size replica of the World Trade Center buildings. It was designed by the same architect and completed 3 years after World Trade Center.

In 2014, $1 billion (12% of Moldovan GDP) were swindled from 3 Moldovan banks. The mastermind of the scam, a man named Ilan Shor, who was a chairman of one of the banks, was elected as the Mayor of a district in Maldova in 2015.

12. On October 5, 1892, the Dalton Gang rode into Coffeyville, Kansas, and attempted two simultaneous bank robberies. Townspeople recognized the outlaws and surrounded the banks. All gang members were shot and killed except for Emmett Dalton, who served 14 years in prison and then became a Hollywood writer.

13. The Bank of England produces banknotes named “giant” and “titan”, worth £1 million and £100 million respectively, used exclusively within the banking system.

14. In 2016, a man tried to rob a bank after paying $500 to a wizard to make him invisible. Thinking no one could see him, he strolled into a bank in Tehran and started snatching money out of people’s hands.

15. Big banks don't process checks and debit card charges to your account in the order they are received, but instead, use a computer program that selects the biggest amounts first and charges them against your account; emptying your account faster and resulting in more overdraft fees (profit).

A 9-year-old boy robbed a New York bank in 1981 and got away with $118.

17. A man named Patrick Combs deposited a junk promotional check as a joke at his bank and they accepted it, depositing $95,093 into his account.

18. In 2016, a chemical engineering student named Christine Jiaxin Lee spent millions of dollars on handbags and luxury goods after a bank gave her the money by mistake. She obtained $4.6 million and spent the majority of it.

19. In 1916, a man named W. H. Coltharp mailed a building to Utah. He needed to build a bank, but his construction materials were 126 miles away. He packaged 80,000 bricks into boxes and mailed them. They got there, but the US postal service was not amused.

20. The day before the United States began bombing Baghdad, nearly US$1 billion was stolen from the Central Bank of Iraq. This is considered as one of the largest bank heists in history.

In July 2009, a man named Josh Muszyski from New Hampshire got charged $23 quadrillion by Bank of America and Visa due to a credit card glitch.

22. In 2003, a middle-aged pizza deliveryman named Brian Wells was forced to rob a bank with a remote-controlled bomb fastened to his neck. He was given a set of (useless) instructions to follow after he robbed the bank to disarm the bomb, but got caught by the police and was blown up by the conspirators.

23. During the runup to World War 2, Chase Bank made $500,000 by selling Reichsmarks stolen from Jews that fled Germany to Nazi sympathizers in the US.

24. An Italian bank named Credito Emiliano accepts Parmesan cheese as collateral for loans and keeps rows upon rows of 85-pound wheels of cheese stacked 33 feet high in a climate-controlled warehouse.

25. In 2008, a bank robber successfully used a Craigslist help-wanted section to recruit construction workers, specifying their uniform, to create unwitting decoys around a bank in Washington that he robbed in matching uniform. His "getaway vehicle" was an inner tube.