Former Jewel Thief Reviews Famous Heist Movies, From ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ to ‘Heat’

this is Larry Lawton and he's an ex jewel thief stop thief I was a robber thief sounds like he went in that person's house and robbed I just went with a gun right to their face Larry's a former career criminal once considered the biggest jewel thief in the United States in seven years I robbed between fifteen and eighteen million dollars and then served 12 years in federal prison and today I'm gonna break down what's right and wrong in some of Hollywood's great movie heists [Music] we're about to watch a lot of crimes in movies but let me be very clear I am in no way endorsing or encouraging crime in any way I'm an ex criminal and now I work with police agencies to prevent crime so I want that to be known right off the bat let's look at some clips the bank robbery when robert de niro takes control or tries to calm everybody down by telling them that their money is insured he's right it's just like with the robberies that I committed the people's jewelry was insured so they got their money it wasn't the people who you're robbing that were getting robbed the real people are the insurance companies or losing the money and again I'm not gonna say it was right it's wrong but it's not their stuff they're losing most of the people I robbed did not hate me because they actually sold their whole store one shot for insurance at one time the feds couldn't get the jewelry store people to say anything bad against they got a couple but the guy shot me okay now the things that stuck out right away on this clip is how much do you think that money weighs cash is king you'd like to rob cash but cash is heavy they're flinging around that cash like like it's feathers that cash is heavy it's a gram per bill each one of those bags is seventy pounds and they're running through the streets like it's a 10 pound bag you know it's totally unrealistic that's part of that struck out of me right away cash is heavy that's why people can rob a lot more in diamonds you can get a diamond worth a hundred thousand dollars that is the size of a a penny you know why cash is king because you don't have to deal with a fence offense is a middleman offense is the guy you take whatever stolen object you have you get cash from that person for that stolen item and he then gets rid of it so you'd have a fence for diamonds you'd have a fence for VCRs you can have a vents vents for clothes whatever you steal you had need a fence not with cash cash is king Thomas Crown Affair what you see in here is a mega millionaire stealing a million-dollar page in a Thomas Crown Affair what does he do he robs art why does he rob art because he knows art so he knew the value when you steal this painting is considered to be the first impressionist work in history it's worth a hundred million bucks in my own career I knew about diamonds why because I went to the GI a Institute under the table to know what I was doing the GI Institute is a Gemological Institute of America they actually show you how to grey diamond great diamonds actually give them what they call a birth certificate so understanding what your robbing is more important than sometimes the robbery itself why would I rob something not owed a value of it morning mr. crown I'll be back for your haystack in the Thomas Crown Affair he gets very tight with everybody and that's very common because when I did my robberies I ended up getting tight with the owner or the salesperson in that jewelry store they didn't know who I was but they got tight with me they started talking about the place and I would end up even sometimes asking to use the bathroom in the back and it's a shirt now I walk in the back and know everything about the store where the cameras work what I don't like about what I'm seeing in this clip is he's robbing for fun he's getting a thrill I've known people who are very wealthy who want something but they don't do it themselves they hire other people to do it are you trying to imply that I had something to do with that painting trying no way but would you go if you were worth 10 million dollars would you go rob something if you got 10 million in your house what are you gonna rob another million for and go to prison it just doesn't make sense thrilled off more Tommy that's $100,000 on the goddamn golf swing beautiful Saturday morning John I had an opportunity to rob millions of dollars in Rembrandt's and Picasso's and I couldn't get two cents on the dollar that means if I robbed a million dollar picture I couldn't get twenty thousand people don't understand when you rob things rob something you can get rid of if I rob right now a truckload of Apple watches I can get rid of them tomorrow if I rob the truckload of Picasso's how am I gonna get rid of them can I'll take the Apple watches over to Picasso as any day it's not worth it you have to be able to sell it the only way you can do something like that is find someone who wants something specific you set a price for it and then steal it other than that stay away you're better off robbing hubcaps that's the truth the Italian Job stealing a safe is not unrealistic in fact I knew many people used to take chains and pull ATM machines right out of banks take them big heavy truck or even take a bulldozer rob the bulldoze and literally take a safe right out throw in the back of a a 4x4 and they're off and on so here's what I love about this scene great timing great misdirection mr. etches when you send police or people or whether it is to another area so you have time to do what you're gonna do in your area in fact I use misdirection some of my robberies I would actually light Molotov cocktails at the end of other end of a mall or a town and the cops and everybody's going towards that and that's misdirection so I know I have more time than the robbery itself so that's done very well in this movie with the misdirection when the safe goes to the floor [Music] but the guards are in the idiots or they're in on it because the 3,000 pounds safe going to two floors it's not gonna end up in a 21 foot boat flying through working out you know in this clip also it's timing it so timing is everything and knowing when and where people are gonna be and come to the place is important so how do you do that it's easy way to do that you can light their Alamo if you can start a little fire or something right next to it throw a brick through a window with an alarm and see if they all how long it takes the police to come there that's called a false alarm but you're still gonna get response time I used to know how many police cars the place had and how many cops were on you can call and notice eyes at a police department and just do the numbers so now if they have 21 patrol divisions you probably have three shifts so at the most you're gonna have a seven cop cars in any given area so how do you know a cop's not patrolling in that area right then and there and you do it the cop shows up within 10 seconds 27 because he's right there you better know where the cops are as where you go to misdirection you know it in this movie right in the beginning right after the Italian job they get away and they were out somewhere celebrating and and one character kills the rest of the people Steve what the hell are you doing I mean if he plans my own and in reality that is more common or would happen with that kind of money trust everyone just don't trust the devil inside the great movie but why don't you just go with these guys in there knock on a door get in there somehow they were in the floor below they were painting some dynamite on the on the walls you can't get into that top floor come on that's the law in mid listening listen I robbed B I used to rob drug dealers I used to tie them all up we'd walk out with a million dollars in cash and the dope so I mean I was a bad guy all around but I don't do that anymore let's take a look at the movie snack so what we're seeing here is four men walking in dressed as Hasidic Jews to rob a wholesaler I knew a guy who did this he dressed up as acidic Jew here in Brooklyn and then robbed the the people who take their diamonds to Temple to bless him [Music] these four guys go in through a buzz door the buzzer doors were good for me the professional criminal not for the smashing grab when I went into a buzz door I was never surprised after that because I would end up bussing the person in and taking them down you don't want someone just walking in and then walking out in those buzzes you also have to buzz out once you're in there your mind you can't even run out of the store it buzzes it locks they're looking for a specific diamond and if you notice it's not in the safe a lot of times a specific diamond or very high-end stuff might be in a full floorboard or a safe that's hidden in a drawer it does not have to be in the actual safe itself a lot of times that's the the jewelry owners trying to not put all their eggs in one basket so if that's safe they get robbed maybe that higher-end stuff doesn't get robbed because a lot of people don't know that but when you case a store you'll figure that out this clip was actually very very realistic there's not much wrong except they would all carry their own gun I didn't see why they were all four guns on one guy that made no sense they're walking in as it is so if one guy goes off and hits a buzzer they're gonna pat him down anyway what I don't like about what I'm seeing in this clip is how they used violence in all of my robberies I've never used violence didn't need to in robberies you don't need to use violence you need intimidation and it's wrong I want to emphasize that I didn't hurt anybody in a robbery but I scared people and that's wrong so I gave scarred them sometimes for life which is wrong but I never had to physically hurt somebody ever in a robbery Ocean's eleven so there's a couple of things this movie does really well casing the joint and getting inside information first task reconnaissance you know everything that's going on in all three casinos from the rotation of the dealers of every cash cart I know everything about every guard every watch or anyone with the security pass casing the joint is when you take the whole entire theft you're gonna do and get every detail when you know that the Sun comes up and there's glare on the window at a specific time when you know when the mailman comes by when the most people are gonna be in the place what time they open where they park their cars when I was casing jewelry stores I wouldn't know what time the Sun come up so I'd get the maximum glare so nobody can look in casing a joint encompasses total control of the robbery and you can see in this clip they're doing exactly that you could see they have inside information they have a dealer who knows the ins and outs of that casino and is watching at all times when you get inside information you might have to do it a couple of ways in the clip you're looking at the girl got money thanks but in reality it will be blackmail and that's what usually gets people when you blackmail somebody it's not just about getting the dirt on them it's getting dirt that's gonna hurt somebody and that's what's important because money will get somebody motivated only so much but blackmail will keep them quiet forever in reality if a reward came out a person who just did something for X amount of dollars can get more money by telling everybody what really happened but if the person was blackmailed you got them forever and it could be really something as small as gambling or it could be something sexual but once you have a motive blackmail it's more powerful than money in the Ocean's eleven movies all of them the ocean movies there's just too many people involved you'd need at least a dozen guys doing a combination of cons when you have 12 people who directly know about what's going on there's gonna be a snitch somewhere and they're gonna get the reward also so even on a mega money if you have 4050 million dollars and you split it up twelve ways and they come up with a five million dollar reward you can get more money by snitching and the snitches somebody's gonna snitch somewhere along the line or somebody was in bed with their wife and they told him what's going on and the wife doesn't like him anymore when I was in Robin nobody knew who my friends and that's important I did that on purpose so if anything happened nobody can get to the next person even my own crew didn't know what I was doing as far as where the money was coming from or who how we would get rid of the diamonds and that's important in this clip here everybody knows everything and that wouldn't happen in real life never the less people to know the better and that's how robbed we should go you know have I ever thought about robbing casinos I think I thought about robbed and everything if you did anything in this movie you'd cut down an amount of people and you might get into the cages but if you ever notice any casino where the cages are they're in the center of the casino away from any exits so there's no way you can get into them believe me I look let's take a look at a robbery gone wrong in hell or high water got the code ribbit what you're looking at in this clip is two brothers who robbed a bank in a rural town early in the morning oh you're guilty of right now is being stupid just leave and that's all a little big the woman is actually giving them some gruff back and you would see that people react to robberies in different ways some people cry some people laugh some people curse you out some people stay silent you have all different reactions you see these guys use gloves I used gloves or you can also use Krazy Glue and literally cover your fingertips and Krazy Glue and then you don't have any gloves and they and you won't get prints out either also they didn't cover their eyes if you ever noticed somebody who really robbed something if they put pantyhose over their head it disfigures their whole entire face and you could still see but you couldn't describe a person's eyes if you left your eyes open a person will look right at your eyes and they'll recognize those eyes again and it's a quick disguise Wham put it right over your head and you're gone and nobody can recognize you you're done that's one way to do it I'll bet we'll get people who do that yeah you guys are gonna go home and find a pair of pants from your mother and yeah hey mom I need a pair of pantyhose you had one guy who was a little out of control but that's actually what made the robbery work because unpredictability if person doesn't know what you're gonna do they're gonna give you whatever you need to get out of there and that's the smart way to do it anyway if you're getting robbed don't get hurt I've got the code they should have cased it they should have known about the safe and who can get into the safe in it what time you can get into the safe also most safes have time locks it can only be open at a certain time and that's very common damn it y'all are new at this I'm guessing obviously there's a couple of things banks do from dye packs to GPS is in the money and they'll give a certain pack of money that has a dye pack and once it leaves the store it blows and all that money is done people in banks are trained to do exactly what they're told and give away the money because it's all insured also in banks if you ever noticed when you go into your next bank look at the door there's actually a hate marker in every Bank right at the door so when you walk out you'll see it and your and they can tell you how tall you were most people who rob banks don't rob one bank they do a lot more obviously with the bank it's the FBI so you will eventually get caught I always say the best from the best the FBI and the FBI they are all the money in the world and all the time in the world you will get caught the convenience store robbery in Fast Times at Ridgemont I a great movie you guys watch that movie it's a great movie we've been following a lot of clips with professional criminals people who plan it out people who know what they're doing casing a joint so to speak in this clip you see the exact opposite of a professional the manager or that store clerk would never have access to a safe and a safe wouldn't be there right behind the post this is on the counter as well it would be a drop safe all convenience stores 7-eleven the I was they all have what they call it drop safe which has a opening on the top that can handle an envelope in cash and every hundred dollars usually in a cash register after they have a hundred dollars they they drop that and you can't get into that drop safe they'll have a lock that's only open usually by the owner or a manager who comes in later at to empty that check the receipts that's what they do he walks in he sprays paint over the camera like the camera didn't see him already in today's world we have cameras that have off-site monitoring and a straight live feeds to another area back in the 80s when this movie was made they didn't have that and they would have had a tape machine in the back office and in the back office you can actually go in there as a criminal and take the tape out and they wouldn't have any kind of feet of you you see the manager grab coffee throw it in the face of the criminal obviously is defending himself and he's allowed to do that of course and he is encouraged not to do that though most police don't want you to get involved and want you to give the money away as quick as you can and get rid of him and observe as much as you can because you don't want to get killed nobody wants to get hurt the first action of everybody involved should be safety and that goes to safety of your customers if this guy's armed and you did something and he shot you and then Spicoli walked out of the bathroom and then got shot as well you're talking about a very dangerous situation it could have been you also saw the getaway driver take off believe it or not with drug addicts that probably be pretty common and the one who got caught would be telling on the one who didn't get caught that would be pretty common too especially with drug dealers drug addicts the clips you just saw I don't ever want people to believe that I'm endorsing crime in any way people don't think criminals should be smarter but most of them are and that's why they go to prison and in my case the FBI was very good [Music]

Channel: Vanity Fair

Views: 8,693,188

Rating: 4.9306741 out of 5

Keywords: criminal expert, criminal expert fact check, criminal expert reviews, expert reviews crime movie, crime movies explained, crime expert explains, crime expert vanity fair, criminal expert vanity fair, jewel thief, jewel thief reviews, jewel thief vanity fair, vanity fair true crime, heist movies, heist movies explained, oceans eleven breakdown, jewel thief analyzes, jewel thief breaks down, famous heist movies, heat breakdown, italian job breakdown, vanity fair

Id: CtWqv0Z3ErM

Length: 19min 48sec (1188 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 07 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/drewmana]

Narrator: “this man is an ex-jewel thief.”

Man: “Not a thief, i was a robber. I used a gun to rob people.”

Narrator: “anyway, this thief...”

[u/4LeafJuliaRogers]

Wow, this is crazy. I never had thought about how people doing movies really need to consult the bad guys they are portraying.

[u/SignificantCod7]

Did anyone else see him wink after he said he wasn't endorsing crime? I hear you loud and clear, Larry. ;)

[u/pwillia7]

AKA How to rob various stores -- Beginner tips and tricks by Vanity Fair

[u/siddhattagotama]

I found this interesting!

[u/propogation]

This guy spent three years in solitary when he got caught holy shit

[u/OhMyGodsmith]

I've worked at 2 retail banks. Neither of them utilize dye packs, or gps trackers. He also over-exaggerated how often the FBI catches bank robbers. It's surprisingly easy to get away with it if you're not a total idiot. I couldn't quote accurate percentages, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's over 50%.

[u/JunkyJoeJoyce]

I like the video but his convenience store commentary is a little off. While stores will of course use drop safes, the manager and assistant manager definitely know the code, and likely some of the clerks if they have been there for a while. Also, depending on how busy it is and how lazy your clerk is (often quite), you can definitely see close to 1k in the till before a drop is made.

Another thing to note is that stores will have coin backups for refilling the till. My store had a $900 back up float and a $400 till, so even at open there would be $1300 in cash out of the safe. When I opened as an assistant manager on a Monday and was pulling drops to count and do weekend paperwork I could easily be caught out with upwards of $5000 in cash and my store wasn't particularly busy compared to some (although bigger stores probably had more than one guy on a Monday morning).

Overall definitely not worth the risk as a crime, but with the correct preparation one could definitely earn a decent 3000-5000 payday.

[u/astonsilicon]

I wonder what the name of his crew was.