This is Somethin’ Else production for Audible Originals podcast.
In this series Michael Caine narrates for us real life heists. He tells about the criminals who did the heists, the people trying to catch them, and also the people caught up in the situation. Many of them have been interviewed for the podcast. The robberies were done in different countries.
The series has six episodes. They’ve all been fascinating and not just told about the crime itself but the criminal culture leading to them and making them possible. I don’t usually care for true crime or memoirs (which is the other category this podcast belongs to) but this one I’ve enjoyed a lot. The heists don’t use much violence. In fact, the criminal avoid it as much as they can.
The first episode is “Underneath the Diamond Town” and it’s set in Antwerp, Belgium, the diamond capital of the world. We hear about the security and how the supposedly impregnable vault was breached.
The second episode is “You Gotta Have Balls” and is tells about the biggest bank robbery in 1972 in US. We get to know about the FBI agents who chased the robbers.
The third episode is “The Transylvania University Book Heist” which happened in the university in question in Kentucky. The librarian who was working during the heist tells us about her experience.
The fourth episode is “All the Money is Stockholm” and tells about a helicopter heist in 2009. A literary writer is contracted to write about this heist and he interviews the criminals.
The fifth episode is “The 150 Million Dollar Fax” where the thieves robbed the Australian government for 150 million. It’s considered to be the first large heist where the robbers never had to enter the bank they robbed.
The sixth episodes is “How Do You Plan a Heist?” where the series creator and Caine look at “the social and security implications that the stories in this series have thrown up.” Even though people enjoy watching movies like Ocean’s 11, in real life the robberies have consequences. And today more and more crimes are done preying of vulnerable people without ever meeting them.
Caine is a good narrator and the cases are fascinating. However, the podcast has a musical soundtrack which can be distracting.
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