Criminal Masterminds

by Anne Williams

  Mesrine was born in Clichy, France, into a middle-class family. He was educated at the Catholic College of Juilly, but was expelled from there, and from another school, for violent behaviour. As a young man, he married – briefly – and served in the French army in Algeria during the war of independence there. On his return to France in 1959, he embarked on a career of crime.

  Ruthless and violent

  Mesrine was a persuasive, charismatic person who was charmed those around him and was very attractive to women. He dressed fashionably and had a series of beautiful girlfriends who shared his taste for glamour and adventure, and who often accompanied him on his criminal escapades. He liked to live well and enjoyed eating at expensive restaurants, cutting a dashing figure in Paris, so that among some sections of the press and the public, he was regarded as something of a hero. The reality was a little different. In actual fact, Mesrine was a ruthless, violent man who boasted about murdering scores of victims. Although he liked to maintain that his crimes were motivated by radical political ideas, he showed no sign during his criminal career of being motivated by anything other than personal greed.

  In 1962, Mesrine attempted to rob a bank with three accomplices, but was arrested, convicted and sent to jail. After serving a year of his sentence, he began work for a design company, but soon resumed his criminal activities again, this time in Spain. He was arrested in Spain after only six months, and then opened a restaurant in the Canary Islands, but this too was short-lived. He went back to his life of crime once more, robbing a hotel in Chamonix, France, and then attempting a kidnapping in Canada.

  Kidnapping plot

  The Canadian fiasco was a plot hatched between him and his girlfriend, Jeanne Schneider. Their aim was to kidnap a textile and grocery millionaire, Georges Deslauriers, and pick up a ransom for him. The reason they chose Deslauriers was that he had hired them as domestic servants and then sacked them. Fortunately for their victim, the plot failed, and Mesrine and Shneider were sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. Amazingly, they managed to escape from custody, capturing a prison warder, stealing his keys and locking him in a cell. They then hid out in the woods, until they were captured and brought to justice once more.

  Mesrine was sent to a high-security prison outside Montreal, Saint Vincent de Paul. But, as it turned out, the prison was not high security enough. Within a short time, he had mounted a daring escape with five other inmates. The prisoners stole a pair of pliers from the prison workshop and proceeded to cut through a maze of fences. They climbed out, flagged down cars on the road and got away. As if this was not enough, Mesrine decided to help the other fifty-three inmates of the prison, who were still inside, by going back to liberate them. Before doing so, he robbed several banks to raise enough money, and bought an arsenal of shotguns and wire cutters. He devised a complicated plan to break through the security systems at the prison, but when he put it into operation, he failed. He had to make a quick getaway, and the prisoners remained inside; but once again, he had escaped capture.

  Judge held hostage

  Now on the run, Mesrine and an accomplice, Jean-Paul Mercier, fled to Venezuela to escape the long arm of the law. But, as seemed to be the pattern with Mesrine, he could not stay away from France – and his life of crime – for very long. He returned to his home country and began to rob banks again until in 1973 he was caught and tried. The trial attracted a great deal of interest from the press, and it became sensational when Mesrine jumped up in court, as the judge was reading out the charges, and took him hostage. He was brandishing a gun that had been hidden for him in a nearby toilet by an accomplice, which he had concealed under his clothes when he attended the court. He put the gun to the judge’s head, held onto his victim and used him as a human shield. In front of amazed onlookers, Mesrine made his way out of the courtroom into the street, still holding on to the judge, and jumped into a getaway car. The police opened fire, but he got clean away.

  A few months later, Mesrine was arrested once again. He was brought to trial, convicted and sent to jail, this time to the maximum security jail at La Sante de Paris. To the horror of the authorities, and the delight of the press – who used the incident as an opportunity to vent their hatred of the French police and security services – Mesrine managed to escape again, causing an absolute furore all over the country. The French police were harangued for being so incompetent that they let him go, while Mesrine was lauded as a folk hero, a kind of latter-day Robin Hood – a rather romantic view of him, which did not tally with his violent personality, or his self-indulgent tastes.

  Maximum security?

  The sensational escape from La Sante de Paris, hitherto regarded as maximum security, was effected by Mesrine and two accomplices, both prisoners at the jail. Together, they held up the guards, stole their uniforms and locked the guards in the prison cells. Using threats, they demanded ladders and climbed over the high prison walls, using grappling irons and ropes. In this way, they managed to escape, becoming the first prisoners from La Sante de Paris ever to do so.

  Mesrine’s escape from La Sante de Paris infuriated the French authorities, which now redoubled their efforts to capture him. However, Mesrine evaded arrest, and went on to step up his exploits, robbing banks and jewellery shops, and smuggling arms. He also kidnapped wealthy individuals and held them to ransom. He boasted during this period that he had killed over thirty people, most of them pimps, but this claim was never verified. Yet even though he was apparently a murderer, the popular French press continued to view him as a loveable rogue and a thorn in the side of the authorities, rather than as a dangerous criminal.

  Shot to death

  After the humiliation of La Sante, the French government decided to act and put a stop to Mesrine’s criminal activities for once and for all. A manhunt was ordered, and ministers instructed police departments across France to search for him. Eventually, his home in the outskirts of Paris at Clignancourt was located. A truck loaded with armed police was dispatched there, and it followed Mesrine as he drove his BMW. This time, as instructed, the police were taking no chances. Instead of trying to flag Mesrine down and arrest him, they pursued him and shot nineteen rounds of bullets through the windscreen of his car, killing him dead.

  Mesrine’s death was hailed as a victory in some circles, and the President of France, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, congratulated the police operation. Others, however, claimed that it was illegal and unfair to treat any citizen in this way, whatever their crimes. Mesrine had not been given any warning, or told to slow his car down, before the police opened fire on him. The police action, the critics claimed, was unwarranted, since they were not acting in self-defence and Mesrine had not opened fire on them.

  The legacy

  During his life, Mesrine had been concerned about the type of publicity he received. He often gave interviews to try to persuade the press that his criminal activities were politically motivated, although this was not true. He took great exception to negative publicity, threatening to kill journalist and former policeman Jacques Tillier because he had written hostile articles about him. After Mesrine’s death, his flamboyant career inspired many musicians to write songs about him; one band from Quebec even named themselves after him. But it was as a comedy act that he was finally immortalised, in the 1980 film Inspecteur la Bavure, which starred the French comedian Coluche and Gerard Depardieu, whose portrayal of the character Morzini was apparently directly inspired by Jacques Mesrine.

  Anthony Pino

  On January 17, 1950, the Brinks building in Boston, Massachusetts, was broken into by armed robbers, who stole over $2 million worth in cash and securities. The size of the haul was so big that the Great Brinks Robbery, as it was called, became the largest bank heist ever to take place in the history of the USA up to that time. Billed as ‘the crime of the century’, the robbery was seen as the work of a criminal mastermind since it had been minutely planned down to the last detail and very few clues were left at the crime scene. For years, pol
ice came no closer to finding the culprits, who undertook not to spend their ill-gotten wealth, to avoid attracting suspicion. However, eventually all nine members of the gang were tracked down and brought to justice, including the man behind the plan, Anthony ‘Fats’ Pino.

  Audacious robbery

  Pino was Italian by origin, and had been born in Italy in 1907. As a child, he had immigrated to the USA with his parents, and the family had settled in Boston. His parents did not register him to become a naturalised American citizen. Exposed to the rougher elements of the city, Pino soon found himself involved in a life of crime, operating as a burglar, among other nefarious activities. In 1928, he was charged with sexual abuse of a minor and convicted of the crime. He was later charged with having burglar equipment in his possession, and with breaking and entering a property with the intent to commit a felony.

  Once the Immigration and Naturalisation Service realised that he was not an American citizen, they began proceedings to have him deported back to Italy. On his release from prison in 1944, he was taken into custody by the immigration authorities, but he managed to get the deportation order dropped by appealing for a pardon. Had the Immigration Service known that Pino was, at the same time, in the process of planning the biggest bank robbery in US history, they might have revised their decision.

  For over a year, Pino had been staking out the target for his robbery, the new Brinks building in Boston. He assembled a team of criminals drawn from the Boston underworld around him to help him do the job: among them were Joseph O’Keefe (nicknamed ‘Specs’), Joseph ‘Big Joe’ McGinnis, and Stanley Gusciora (nicknamed ‘Gus’). Over a period of months, the gang became as familiar as they could with the layout of the building, and with the comings and goings of the staff who worked there. On one of his visits, Pino discovered that staff on the second floor routinely counted up the takings for the day, much of it in cash. He also found out that the amounts of money they were dealing with were huge and realised that, if he could only access this money, he could get away with $1 million or more.

  The big day

  However, there was just one problem: security. To get to the money, the robbers would have to pass through five locked doors, all of which set off alarms when an intruder made the slightest noise. It was here that Pino’s experience as a burglar came in. He devised a plan whereby members of his team would, over a period of months, become familiar with the times the doors were left open and unattended. Then, at a given time, the robber would take the lock out of the door and give it to a locksmith to make extra copies of the key that would open it. Afterwards, the robber would return the lock to the door and screw it back in. As can be imagined, it took a long time for the robbers to find opportunities when no one was looking, unscrew the door lock and take it to a locksmith to copy the key. But eventually, with immense patience, the job of copying keys for all five doors was done – and still no one at the bank had noticed what was going on.

  The day came when all the right factors were in place to put the plan into action. The area around the bank was peaceful, so that there would not be too many witnesses; there were only a few employees left in the premises; and, most importantly, the bank’s takings that day were high. This was the moment that Pino and his team had been waiting for. They had called the robbery off six times at the last minute, due to some hitch or other, but now, at last, the moment was right.

  Hallowe’en masks

  The robbers were dressed alike, in navy suits and chauffeurs’ caps, an outfit similar to the uniform of the Brinks’ employees. To disguise themselves, they wore Halloween masks; to make sure they left no fingerprints, they donned gloves. At 6.55 p.m. on January 17, 1950, they drove up to the bank.

  Pino and the driver stayed in the car while seven of the team entered the building. Using their copied sets of keys, they gained access to the second floor and held up five Brinks employees who were counting the takings. They then bound and gagged the victims, and piled up the money ready to take it away. So far it had all gone to plan, it seemed; but then a Brinks employee buzzed on the door to be let in. The robbers looked at each other in horror, wondering what to do, but before they could act, the Brinks employee walked off, apparently having given up his errand. The robbers redoubled their efforts, loading up the money as fast as they could, and within half an hour, they had left.

  The usual suspects

  Naturally enough, as soon as their attackers disappeared, staff called the police. It was only a matter of minutes before the police arrived, along with agents from the FBI. However, they found few clues that would help them find the robbers. None of them could be identified, because of the Halloween masks that they had worn; and there were no fingerprints anywhere, because the attackers had worn gloves. The only evidence that the robbers had left behind was the rope and sticky tape they had used to bind and gag the staff – and a chauffeur’s cap. As well as the money, the robbers had stolen four revolvers, so the serial numbers of these were noted down by the FBI, in case this information might be useful at a later date. Other than the obvious fact that the heist had been carried out by professionals, this was all the police had to go on at this stage.

  Initially, the police turned to the usual suspects in the city, career criminals who had long been a thorn in their side. However, there was no evidence to show that any of them were guilty. In desperation, the police began to interview older criminals, such as former members of the ‘Purple Gang’ of the 1930s, who had been bootleggers in the days of Prohibition, but they seemed to know nothing about what was fast becoming known as ‘the crime of the century’.

  Final arrests

  When news of the robbery appeared in the press, the public were fascinated. The bank offered a reward of $100,000 for information that would lead to the culprits, and soon the police began to receive hundreds of calls, but none of these yielded any useful information. Of course, the police had their suspicions; but until some evidence was found, nothing could be done.

  Then there was a breakthrough, or so it seemed. Children playing on a sandbar in Mystic River, Somerville, found one of the revolvers. In Stoughton, Massachusetts, parts of the truck the gang had used were found, and as a result, police visited Gus Gusciora and ‘Specs’ O’Keefe at their homes in the area, but no evidence to connect them to the robbery could be unearthed.

  It was not until O’Keefe was arrested in connection with another burglary that the truth began to come out. While he was in prison, officials became aware that he was involved with a wealthy gang on the outside. In 1955, O’Keefe was released, and a rift between the gang members developed, as O’Keefe accused the others of cheating him over the proceeds of the robbery. In response, Pino hired a hitman to kill O’Keefe, a man named Elmer ‘Trigger’ Burke. Burke shot O’Keefe several times, but did not manage to kill him. While in hospital, and bitter about his treatment at the hands of the gang, O’Keefe agreed to give evidence against them.

  As a result, Anthony Pino was arrested on January 12, 1956. All the remaining members of the gang, except Gusciora, who had died, were also arrested. At the trial, which began on August 12, 1956, all the gang members except O’Keefe were convicted and given life sentences. In return for his cooperation, O’Keefe only received a four-year sentence. As to the money, it was never recovered.

  PART NINE: Fictional Masterminds

  Blofeld

  (James Bond)

  Ernst Stavro Blofeld is the creation of Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond series of spy novels. The evil genius behind the fictional terrorist organisation SPECTRE, which is dedicated to the destruction of the British Secret Service in general, and top spy James Bond in particular, Blofeld spends his time trying to outwit his opponent, and usually fails. He has been memorably depicted on film: in early James Bond movies, he is referred to only as Number One; his face is never seen and we only see his arm and hand as he strokes a Persian cat on his knee. We also hear his voice, speaking in a soft and rather sinister manner. Later in the series
, we find out that Number One is in fact Blofeld. A number of different actors played Blofeld, with varying degrees of credibility. He usually appears wearing a Nehru jacket and fondling a cat. In the novels no mention of a cat is made, and Blofeld is described as having black hair and a crew cut. None of the actors playing Blofeld to date has fitted this description; however, today the film image of Blofeld, rather than that of the book, is the one that has impacted on the public imagination as Fleming’s famous criminal mastermind.

  Treacherous villain

  According to the life history that Fleming gives in his novel Thunderball, Blofeld was born on 28 May, 1908. (This was also, as it happens, Fleming’s birth date; and it seems that the name Blofeld was inspired by one of Fleming’s schoolmates, father of the British cricket commentator Henry Blofeld.) As Fleming tells the story, Blofeld grew up in Gdynia, which was then in Germany, but is now part of Poland. His father was Polish and his mother Greek. The child, who was named Ernst Stavro to reflect his mixed parentage, became a Polish national after World War I. Fleming imagines that, as a young man, Blofeld attended the University of Warsaw and gained a wide-ranging education in political history and economics. He also credits him with degrees in radionics and engineering at Warsaw’s University of Technology. (Radionics is a theory, popular around the turn of the twentieth century, according to which all forms of matter have ‘energy frequencies’ – vibrations and harmonic patterns. These frequencies also occur in human beings and determine their state of health. According to the theory of radionics, or pseudoscience as some believe it to be, patients can be medically diagnosed by studying these ‘energy frequencies’, and a cure for their condition can be found by rebalancing the frequencies, thus restoring them to good health.)