Albert Spaggiari

Albert Spaggiari (born December 14, 1932 in Laragne-Montéglin , † June 8, 1989 in Belluno ) was a French burglar who was best known as the head of the break-in at the Société Générale bank in Nice in 1976.

Together with some professional gangsters, an eight-meter-long tunnel was dug into the bank's vaults. On July 16, 1976, during a long weekend on France's national holiday, they broke into the vault itself, opened 400 safe deposit boxes, and stolen an estimated 60 million francs in money, papers and valuables.

After a while, the police found the gang and picked them up in October of the same year. During the hearings, Spaggiari planned a cinematic escape - he wrote a document that was recorded as evidence but used a code. During a conversation about this document with the responsible judge Richard Bouaziz he distracted it, ran to the balcony window, jumped from the second floor onto a parked car, rolled off unhurt and got on a waiting motorcycle.

It is speculated whether he had help with the escape from the Organization de l'armée secrète , of which he was a fighter in the Algerian war. American intelligence reports report later activities in Chile.

Spaggiari was sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia, but was not caught until the end of his life. His lifeless body was found outside his mother's house on June 10, 1989. According to later reports, he died of throat cancer in Piedmont on June 8th in the presence of his mother, who drove him over to France herself to be able to bury him near her home.

literature

Klaus Bittermann : “The gangster as a folk hero. Albert Spaggiari - Career and Myth of a Criminal ”; in: ders. The dying of the phantoms. Crime and the Public , Critica Diabolis 18, Berlin 1988
Ken Follett , Rene Louis Maurice: “Cool. The bank robbery of Nice ”, Betzel-Verlag, 1993, ISBN 3-929017-04-0

Individual evidence

^ The Heist of the Century , 2002, ISBN 0-00-635202-2 . Additional titles: Die Millionsbeute (1978), Under the Streets of Nice (1983), Under the Streets of Nice (1983), The rats of Nice (1983), Cool - The bank robbery of Nice (1993)

personal data
SURNAME	Spaggiari, Albert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	French burglar
DATE OF BIRTH	December 14, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH	Laragne-Montéglin , Hautes-Alpes department , France
DATE OF DEATH	June 8, 1989
Place of death	Belluno , Italy

[1] The Heist of the Century , 2002, ISBN 0-00-635202-2 . Additional titles: Die Millionsbeute (1978), Under the Streets of Nice (1983), Under the Streets of Nice (1983), The rats of Nice (1983), Cool - The bank robbery of Nice (1993)