VIDEO. “Neither weapon, nor violence and without hatred”: Albert Spaggiari, the “heist of the century” and a life on the run

The modus operandi of the robbery, the amount of the loot, the profile of the alleged "brain", his escape, his life on the run... Everything in the story of Albert Spaggiari is nothing but spectacle and excess.

In July 1976, he made his grand entrance into the history of the news item.

With his accomplices, Spaggiari signs what has been called the "heist of the century" by fracturing more than 300 safes at the Société Générale de Nice, for a booty of 46 million francs at the time, equivalent to a little more of 30 million euros.

To shape the legend, the thieves also leave a message: "No weapon, no violence and no hatred".

Because to achieve their ends, the criminals entered the bank without anyone noticing.

And for good reason: for several weeks, they dug an 8 m tunnel, from the sewers,

Discreet before the heist, the gang of sewer workers will be much less so afterwards.

In the weeks that followed, a name came back to the ears of the investigators: that of Spaggiari.

First name: Albert.

A wedding photographer a priori uneventful.

He was picked up by the police when he got off the plane, back from Japan, and confessed shortly after.

The exact composition of the team of thieves remains unclear.

And if the involvement of some is not in doubt, very few people will ultimately be worried or sentenced by the courts.

France, she then discovered the famous "brain of the heist of the century", a man less smooth and darker than it seems.

A former para, fired from the army after robbing a prostitute bar in Indochina, Spaggiari is also a former member of the OAS and a far-right activist.

His motivations for the breakage were also political and his share of the loot was to be used, according to him, to finance an international far-right organization.

To read also Break of the century: the end of a legend?

Spaggiari, the false “brain” of heist?

Imprisoned in Baumettes in Marseille, Spaggiari wants and will find the light.

During an interview in the judge's office in Nice on March 10, 1977, he jumped out of the window and landed a few meters lower on the roof of a car.

In the street, an accomplice is waiting for him on a motorbike.

It's the beginning of an endless run, full of bravado.

The escapee indeed regularly gives his news, responding to interviews where he appears made up.

This run will last until his death.

Suffering from cancer, Albert Spaggiari died on June 8, 1989 and his body was deposited at night at his mother's house in Hyères.

Spaggiari, the whimsical and insolent "brain" now single-handedly embodies this famous "heist of the century".

But the reality is probably (much) more nuanced.

In a book written under a pseudonym, in 2010, a man named “Amigo” claimed responsibility for the burglary.

Behind "Amigo" was in fact hiding Jacques Cassandri, a figure in the Marseilles milieu, whose literary confessions turned against him.

Because if the 1976 heist was prescribed at the time of writing his book, this was not the case for the laundering of the loot, for which he found himself in court in 2018. At the hearing, Cassandri had denied any involvement in the theft.

“I know I'm going to pass for a comedian, (…) but it's only a novel.

I didn't participate at all."

The prosecutor had ruled out this reversal,

considering "concordant elements to establish his participation" in the sewer gang, but he had not retained the offense of laundering the loot.

"It is impossible for me to link the sums of this aggravated theft to the sums found" and reinvested in the small empire of the Cassandri family.