Suspicious Sinkhole Leads Police To Uncover A Weird Plot Like No Other !

suspicious sinkhole leads police to uncover a criminal plot like no other [Music] [Applause] police in southern florida responded to a call about a sinkhole that quickly revealed itself to be less of a natural phenomenon but something far more mischievous however as the scheme unraveled investigators went from reluctantly impressed by the illegal plot to shaking their heads at the dimwitted con job it seems that in real life sinkholes and intricate heists are far and few between at 9 30 pm on tuesday january 29th the phone rang at the pembroke pines public works the city government office in the small florida town officials there know that late night calls seldom bring good news but this case was stranger than the average a good samaritan spotted what first appeared to be a substantial pothole though when the motorist got a closer look they thought yep that's a sinkhole all right so they phoned in the proper authorities when the road crew arrived on the scene they poked around the sinkhole and were baffled suddenly they were left with more questions than answers but there was one thing they knew for sure this was no sinkhole peering over the edge the crew saw a power cord trailing down through the mysterious abyss looking in the general direction of where the cord was headed it appeared to lead off to a nearby line of trees so they rang the pembroke pines police department after checking out the initial cause for concern the cops turned their attention to the tree line there another discovery thickened the plot hidden amongst the shrubbery was another hole they suspected this opening was a tunnel examining the area in darkness officers found some other items that hinted toward a more nefarious explanation their flashlight caught a small electric generator and more electrical cords kept out of sight in the small patch of trees and bushes across the street in the general direction of the opening was a local chase bank branch taking into account all the clues the chords the location of the holes and the obvious attempts to disguise their tracks the cops were convinced that this was the entrance to a tunnel and it was time to inform the fbi by wednesday morning flamingo road was teeming with fbi investigators that's when things started getting stranger in order to determine the intention behind the hand-dug passageway then to see where it led the two-foot by two-foot tunnel entrance raised countless questions on its own since the digger had to be awfully tiny to travel through the narrow opening there was no visible evidence to identify the pocket-sized culprit finally the fbi investigators confirmed what they had suspected all along special agent michael levrock responded to reporters we traced the hole from the wood line approximately 50 yards until it hits the bank like a plot straight out of a heist movie someone hatched an elaborate plan to burrow underground and break into the bank unfortunately for that devious mustache twirling villain their plans were foiled investigators continue to comb the tunnel for other clues as luck would have it the criminal mastermind hadn't been too careful they'd forgotten to retrieve from the passage an old pair of muddy boots of course the identity of the potential burglar was intriguing but most compelling was how they managed it digging half the length of a football field on a public street surrounded by business and traffic completely undetected is master level thievery before they chalked it up to danny ocean they uncovered the secret method for carrying out the dirt a winch a mechanical tool used to reel in or release rope was obscured in the tree line for such an involved heist the culprit didn't do a good job of covering their tracks at some point the determined criminal pickaxed their way through the damp floor to earth using the winch and a small wagon police found nearby one hall at a time they carried the dirt out and away truth be told the fbi was not sure what the perpetrator was capable of as a precaution they enlisted the help of a cadaver dog sniffing his way through the trenches the dog found no bodies alive or dead with zero dollars stolen and zero fatalities the fbi investigators felt comfortable chuckling over the silly caper did they plan on pickaxing through the banks foundation would they dance through a laser light alarm system like a stealthy cat granted the tenacity it took to execute the tunnel portion was impressive investigators swept the area with detectors picking up more ground area with cable led and passageways in the end their efforts were thwarted by the rain several florida drizzles softened the earth causing the tunnel to collapse in multiple locations the soaked ground resulted in the initial pothole that triggered the phone call authorities guessed the cave-ins led the perp to weasel their way out of the scheme still there was neither hide nor hair to point towards the culprit but the case just goes to show that the slightest abnormality can break open a huge conspiracy up north in new york other investigators began sniffing around after some insects started behaving strangely a strange miracle of nature cropped up around brooklyn in the summer of 2010 where beekeepers noticed a reddish hue to the bellies of their bees soon enough their honey yield was just as rosy they worried what the red color meant for the bee's survival were they suffering the effects of pesticides or perhaps this was a climate induced issue given that new york city was in the midst of its hottest summer on record granted bee populations globally took a hit from colony collapse disorder which still has no definable cause while the beekeepers knew the potential hazards of raising colonies nobody had ever heard of spontaneously red honey though the industry was totally new to the city beekeeping in new york was banned under mayor rudolph giuliani though there were still several rogue operations carefully disguised on rooftops in march of 2010 the ban was lifted quadrupling the number of hives by summertime so full-time educator and part-time beekeeper tim o'neal suggested the red substance could be ethylene glycol a toxic chemical famous for its sweetness he reasoned the bees were drawn to the liquid from mta bus service depots cerise mayo a beekeeper on governor's island oscillated bees producing red honey which meant whatever was causing this anomaly somehow reached across the 600 yards of water separating them from the red hook cases to determine if the honey was actually poisoned with ethylene glycol or any other contaminant the keepers hadn't considered tim o'neal sent samples of the honeycomb offer lab testing in the new york state aquaculturist in albany when the test came back the results showed the culprit f d and c red number 40. the bees were ingesting a food safe dye somewhere around red hook brooklyn and pretty soon the beekeepers had a hunch about the source of the color dell's maraschino cherries company founded in 1948 was a three generation run family business and an institution for the neighborhood of red hook it just so happened that a key ingredient in their fruit confection was fdnc red number 40. murmurs of the cherry factory's involvement turned a hard fact when the new york times ran a front page headline in mystery and culture clash some brooklyn bees turn red still some questioned whether it was all a joke governor island beekeeper cerise mayo was quoted in the times article which some people took as an attempted humor they thought her name was fake because cyrese is the french word for cherry most people took the initial article as a story about gentrification on one side there was arthur mandela the owner operator of del's maraschino cherries company and on the other were modern beekeeping gentrifiers pointing the finger there was pointedly no comment from arthur mandela in the story and he wasn't answering calls he was however trying to remedy the problem quietly on his own arthur spoke to andrew cote from the new york city beekeepers association and arranged a meeting as to avoid lurking reporters arthur met andrew cote at the factory one morning at 5 am arthur was ready and willing to learn how to put some screens up make lids through his bins tighter and control the spills as cote remembered when they parted ways arthur mandela paid andrew cote for his services no cherry puddles were going to leak out of the factory anymore all was well in fact the beekeepers were thankful arthur called in one of their own rather than an exterminator this however was not the end of the mystery one group spotted the article in the paper and wasn't as willing to let bygones be bygones the brooklyn district attorney's office there was a reason arthur mandala was so willing to sweep his cherry puddles under the rug it was a long held nypd suspicion that dell's maraschino cherries company was covering up a criminal operation on more than one occasion the lingering odor of marijuana was reportedly beneath the sickly sweet cherry smell postal workers called it in neighbors noticed but even a drug sniffing dog wasn't able to pinpoint a marijuana scent lack of evidence may the da's office move the cherry factory to the back burner until 2013 when kenneth thompson was elected under kenneth thompson the da's office cracked down on environmental infections which brought the maraschino honeykeeper caper back to the surface on february 24th 2015 the department of environmental protection the nypd and the brooklyn da's office went to del's maraschino cherries company search warrant in hand from arthur mandela's perspective this was an ambush according to the warrant they were searching for evidence of the illegal dumping of wastewater which limited the scope of where they could look that didn't keep them from a major discovery during the search they discovered what appeared to be a false wall in arthur's office things were looking grim the authorities requested a second search warrant to gain access to the hidden area and arthur took a moment to relax in the bathroom after a few minutes arthur didn't return police officers hammered on the locked door telling arthur to open but he wouldn't budge instead he requested his sister joan to come to the door where he called her to take care of my kids moments later the sound of a gunshot echoed through the factory arthur mandela took his own life with a 357 magnum pistol he'd concealed in an ankle hoster he must have seen no way to reckon with the consequences of what police were about to uncover shifting aside the false wall police saw a ladder that led them to a sprawling 2 500 square foot basement turned into a substantial grow operation in total 100 plants were recovered thriving under the led grow lights each discovery added to the overtly cinematic narratives 130 thousand dollars in cash a secret garage full of luxury cars that included a rolls royce and a bentley plus many books about plant husbandry and another entitled the world encyclopedia of organized crime in spite of the weird breaking bad style tragedy that unfold at the maraschino cherry factory the da's office didn't go for the jugular the company's new owners arthur's daughter dana mandela bence and dominique mandela paid a 1.2 million dollar fine no one will know the fear and shame arthur mandela experienced moments before his death but we do know what probably would have happened if he lived based on the charges he could have served maybe one to three years behind bars but probably would have gotten probation he was very private we'd ask him questions when we were little and his response would be what are you writing a book dana mandela told the new yorker the sisters picked up the baton of the family business without a hiccup thanks to their sizable inheritance other than the book in the basement there was no evidence of any connection to organized crime after a lawsuit that the family filed against the city for their handling of the search warrant was dismissed they argued the judge had prejudicial views of italian americans well the chapter of a great mystery was put to rest and the bees and their honey had long since turned back to gold the mandela family grieved they mourned arthur and came to terms with why a proud small business owner would do what he did investigators can't be sure how arthur mandela went about distributing the drugs or over how long a period of time he operated some people have blamed the bees for knarking out a family man but it's not that uncommon for nature to foil crimes as a matter of fact people in pembroke pine south florida were alerted of a hazardous crater in the middle of a roadway that looked like a sinkhole late night calls seldom bring good news but this case was stranger than the average banco central brazil three months before heist day a group of brazilian thieves made a little investment they rented a property just a few blocks from their target and set up a fake landscaping business then their plan was ready the heist disguised as landscapers the thieves tunneled complete with wood framework and lighting from the neighboring property to underneath the bank without setting off an alarm they lifted 95 million dollars of which authorities only ever recovered 9 million kenya commercial bank in kenya a police station across the street didn't stop thieves from targeting this bank the three perpetrators had their own property nearby a bookstore and in 2017 they used that to their advantage to pull off the unbelievable the heist the men tunneled from their bookstore to the vault of the bank next door using boxes to cover up their work in the end the trio swiped 52 million kenyan shillings or about five hundred thousand dollars the men were however eventually charged for their crime the great train robbery england in 1962 after an informant told him just how much money royal mail trains carried english nierduel bruce reynolds assembled a team of 15 men to rob a 12 carriage train the heist to pull it off the men fussed with the light signals on the tracks forcing the train to stop then they knocked out the driver and took about 3.6 million dollars in banknotes the men were eventually arrested but most were set free years later on probation west hartford wells fargo united states throughout the cold war infamous cuban ruler fidel castro hated america for a number of reasons including for its exploitation of puerto rico so he hired a wells fargo armored truck driver named victor gerina to perform a little thievery the heist in 1983 gerina who was part of the puerto rican nationalist group la mechateros stole 7 million dollars from one of the trucks he drove before wells fargo knew what had happened he fled to cuba never to be seen again dunbar armored car depot united states whenever he saw armored cars alan pace the third of los angeles california saw dollar signs inclined to launch a heist the dunbar security guard knew better than to target the cars instead he set his sights on the depot the heist pace and a team of five men subdued the depot's employees slid into the vaults and loaded 20 million dollars into a rented u-haul destroying security cameras along the way authorities eventually caught the team but 15 million dollars still remains at large bank of france toulon france in 1992 10 men had a contact on the inside of a french bank holding millions in assets after hearing or talk about the money inside they decided it was time to try and make out like bandits the heist the men first kidnapped a bank guard's family in case this didn't do the trick they also tied explosives to his body naturally he let them into the bank and they swiped about 21 million dollars their inside lady eventually snitched on them though less than a tenth of the money has been recovered british bank of the middle east lebanon in 1976 lebanon was in the middle of a vicious civil war which made banks sitting ducks for people who wanted to you know win the war so members of the palestinian liberation organization hatched a scheme the heist the plo group blew a hole in the side of the bank right beside the vault they cracked open the vaults and stole between 20 and 50 million dollars in currency jewels bonds and anything else of value those responsible were never caught northern bank ireland on december 20th 2004 a group of unidentified men hatched a plan to steal some cash from ireland's oldest bank chain launching the united kingdom into a finger-pointing frenzy the heist late at night the armed men burst into the homes of bank executives and held their families at gunpoint their instructions were simple open up the vaults after hours and let them in the executives complied and the robbers took home about 37 million dollars brinks m.a.t robbery london under the cover of darkness in november 1983 a guard at the brinks mat warehouse in heathrow airport let six thieves into the highly secured area upon entering the target area however the thieves changed their plans the heist the thieves planned on taking 3 million pounds but found an additional three tons of gold in the vaults so they took everything leaving with 26 million pounds or about 41 million dollars most involved were caught by police and convicted but none of the money was recovered united california bank united states emil dinzio shown here wasn't an amateur he made a living off robbing banks so in 1972 he and a team which included an alarm expert named phil christopher set their sights on a southern california bank the heist after entering the bank christopher disabled the alarm system and the crew blasted a hole in the roof with a stick of dynamite once in the vault they took 36 million dollars about 176 million dollars by today's standards after inflation knightsbridge security deposit vault england valeriovechia saw himself as a bit of a gangster he had 50 armed robberies under his belt so he and a partner hatched a plan to swipe big bucks from an english vault all they needed were award-winning acting skills the heist then she and his friend posed as potential clients for this vault and asked the manager to look at some safety deposit boxes once they had access they pulled out guns and with additional accomplices they let in from outside they swiped about 98 million dollars security depot england after suffering a career-ending knife injury while protecting his friends mma middleweight lee murray assembled a team to conduct the largest bank heist in british history their plan was surprisingly simple the heist posing as police officers murray and his crew kidnapped the bank manager and his family holding them at gunpoint while the staff handed over the equivalent of about a hundred million dollars three months later the crew was arrested iraq in 2007 employees at the large iraqi investment bank showed up to work only to find something curious tons and tons of american money had been filched from vaults what happened the heist after the money was discovered to be missing the interior ministry and the finance ministry set up investigations that proved fruitless their best theory suggests night guards swiped the 282 million dollars though the money was never recovered central bank iraq on march 18 2003 one day before america invaded iraq dictator saddam hussein knew his country's money wouldn't make it through the war so he sent his son kousei hussein to the bank with a signed note he had one simple job the heist at the behest of his father the younger hussein supervised workers filling three massive trucks with metal box after metal box each bursting with money after that he led the trucks with nearly a billion dollars away from the scene one third of it was never seen again