The miraculous life of Ronnie Biggs.

Participator of the Great Train Robbery who voluntarily gave himself to British authorities in 2001 has become a national hero. The legend of his life and his “work” – avoiding to be caught – is alive even today. 

He robbed a train full of money, became a national hero, spend the best years of his life in Brazil as a free man, and received a lifetime achievement award for his services to crime! This is, in short, the miraculous life of Ronald “Ronnie” Biggs, one of the most famous thieves of all times, and participator of the Great Train Robbery that took place in England, on 8 August 1963. And that’s not all, in 2001, Biggs turned himself in to British authorities.

On his 34th birthday, along with 14 of his "colleagues", Biggs intercepted a train at Bridego Railway Bridge in Buckinghamshire. With well planned action, experienced thieves stole £ 2.6 million, which was amazingly large sum of money at the time (equivalent of around £40 million or US$67 million today).

So, what is necessary for a quality, successful and lucrative train robbery like the one Biggs and his team pulled out?  First, you need an informant, an insider so to speak, who will alarm the gang when the train is full of money. Bruce Reynolds, the man who devised the whole robbery, met with a certain Ulsterman (men whose identity was never uncovered), who gave him an information worth of gold – schedule of trains that are carrying mail and bags full of money on the line Glasgow - London. The robbers were probably expecting to find around £ 300,000 in the wagons, which was the amount of money that was averagely transferred by train. However, Biggs’ lucky star venerated him on his birthday with a much larger sum – it turned out that banks in Glasgow didn’t work for several days because of holidays, and the wagons were filled during that time with almost £ 3 million.

Around three o’clock in the morning, at a place known as 'Sears Crossing', the robbers covered the green signal light and then reconnected the wires in order to switch it to red signal light. When the train came and stopped because of the signal light, the robbers very quickly took control over it from the regular train operating staff.  The only person who got hurt in this robbery was a train driver Jack Mills, who refused to move the train some 800 meters further. After that, he accepted. In 30 minutes, the money was taken out of the train and then brotherly divided. Each robber got around £ 150.000. They managed to spend most of that money, and only around £ 400,000 was eventually recovered by the police. 

During the following months, robbers were arrested one by one – almost the entire crew. Discrete roguish hero, Ronnie Biggs, was among them.

British Justice severely punishment the robbers – they were sentenced around 30 years each. The criminal biography of each robber would probably be interesting for the story (along with three robbers that have never been arrested). But Ronnie Biggs, the man who played just supporting role in the original plan of this great robbery and was responsible to do something only if the train driver refuses to start the train, has managed to escape. 

In July of 1965, along with a group of convicts, Ronnie Biggs escaped form HM Prison Wandsworth. He escaped through the window, with the help of homemade rope ladder.  Thanks to the loot from previous robbery, he was able to pay a trip to Paris and underwent plastic surgery.

When he got his hands on false documents and a new face, Ronnie bought a plane ticket and went to Australia. With this trip, he started a journey on which many of us would envy him. His wife and two sons joined him in Melbourne. Enjoying the Australian air, Biggs expanded his family with one more child.


The police had already given up on him, but the always-curious journalists didn’t. Thus, Reuters reported that Ronnie is in Melbourne. Being aware of that, he left his wife and children, traveled by ship to Panama and then to Brazil. Scotland Yard was at his heels, but wise Ronnie took advantage of good old legal loophole - Brazil had no extradition treaty with England. 

Sweet freedom, spiced with socializing with beautiful Brazilian women, was for the first time interrupted briefly in 1974. Scotland Yard detective Jack Slipper who, like in some movie, devoted his career to hunting down Biggs, arrested him in Rio de Janeiro. Ronnie got away thanks to his womanizing skills – he was already a father to a boy that emerged from his extramarital relationship with one Brazilian dancer. Also, during his fugitive years he filed for divorce from his wife.  And Brazilians were not ready to extradite a father of Brazilian child to the British authorities. As far as the town carnivals was concerned, he was a free man.

He was in some sort of house detention, but that didn’t prevented him to organize parties where his fans were coming to listen to his anecdotes about the famous robbery. Joyful and enterprising people of Rio figured out that they could make some money on their illustrious guest, so they started making T-shirts and mugs with Ronnie’s image. 

In 1977, Ronnie almost fell into the hands of the law while sipping a drink on the British ship in the harbor of Rio.

Quiet days in Rio were once again interrupted in 1981, when Biggs was kidnapped and taken to Barbados (even in chains the old thief couldn’t avoid exotic locations). Former British soldiers who kidnapped him hoped that they would take the money from the prize that was offered by British police for Biggs’ head. But… Neither Barbados had an extradition treaty with England. They were forced to return him to Brazil, to the mother of his child, Raimunda de Castro, whom he married in 2002.

Decades went on and on, and Biggs enjoyed his life on the beaches of Atlantic. But then, at the age of 72, he decided to return to his country. On 7 May 2001, British tabloid "Sun" paid £ 20,000 for Biggs’ transport in a private plane to London, where he was supposed to pay his debt in front of justice. Of course, with that money they also obtained exclusive rights to the story.

Ooops, I almost forgot. Why did good old Ronnie surrendered himself? There is only one explanation – he squandered all the money from the robbery and he was unable to pay for his health insurance, so he figured it out that the English prison could be a solid option of a nursing home for an old thief like him.

Biggs himself, who was adorned by media for many years, said that the reason behind his decision was nostalgia.

“My last wish is to walk into a Margate pub as an Englishman and buy a pint of bitter.”

He spent the next eight years in prison. During that time, he persistently asked for a reduction in sentence on the basis of poor health. He was supposed to serve 28 years – that was his original sentence. But, eventually, he was locked up just 8 years. Two days before his 80th birthday, the state took pity on Ronnie, who was already a severe heart patient, and freed him. 

In 2011, tabloid newspaper "Mirror" gave him lifetime achievement award for his services to crime... They thought he had only seven days left to live. The last news about Ronnie Biggs was the release of his new and updated autobiography, "Odd Man Out: The Last Straw". The old thief is still alive...

The conclusion? When I grow up I’m gonna be Ronnie Biggs. Just an irrelevant player in a great train robbery. And then, I am heading strait to Brazil.

Biggs as a singer, author and pop icon

It is difficult to enumerate all of those who have honored Biggs. This train robber was most famous during eighties, when he was practically a pop icon. He attracted the attention of the greatest punk band of all times, "Sex Pistols". In 1980, for the film “The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle”, Biggs recorded vocals for the song "No One is Innocent" in collaboration with guitarist and drummer of already disbanded "Pistols"

A bunch of books is written regarding the character and life of this charming thief. Biggs himself wrote his biography, and his son Michael (from the relationship with the Brazilian dancer) wrote a confession of his father. Also, writer Mike Gray wrote Ronnie’s version of the Great Train Robbery. British television filmed two documentaries about Biggs, in 2003 and in 2006. It0s needless to say that most of the participants in the robbery attempted to capitalize on their fame through confessions and books.

Biggs has also collaborated with the German punk band Die Toten Hosen with whom he sang the song "Carnival in Rio".

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FBI's nightmare - D. B. Cooper

The FBI is still searching for D. B. Cooper, the protagonist of the only unsolved airline hijacking in American aviation history. In 1971, this man jumped from Boeing 727, carrying $ 200,000 of ransom money in his bag - and simply disappeared. 

The good guys from the FBI absolutly hate it when someone commits a very serious and very well-known criminal offense and then just – disappears. Then they have to scan the available evidence hundreds of times, year after year, and sometimes they are waiting for several decades only to start the investigation from scratch. Their working motto can be summed up in just one sentence: the suspect cannot be allowed to disappear so that no one can find him. 

Well, one man has done just that. And no one – how about that, FBI guys? –hasn’t found him. Neither him nor his money.

On the eve of Thanksgiving in 1971, a certain Dan Cooper – probably a false name – arrived at the international airport in Portland, Oregon. When he approached the flight counter of "Northwest Orient Airlines", he had with him just a black attaché case. He bought a one way ticket on Flight 305 - a 30-minute trip to Seattle, Washington. With the purchased ticket, Cooper entered the "Boeing 727-100" and took seat 18-C, which was near the tail. He lit a cigarette - then, in those happy times, you were allowed to do that - and ordered a bourbon and soda.

According to witnesses, he looked quite relaxed. The witnesses also said that he seemed to be in mid-forties, and about 180 centimeters tall. He was wearing a raincoat under which was a nice dark suit and nicely ironed white shirt.

When the plane took off – around 2:50 pm, local time – Cooper approached the flight attendant Florence Schaffner and thrust a piece of paper into her hand. Beautiful Florence, who was often approached by lonely businessmen, thought that he was just giving her his phone number. Without looking at it, she put the paper into her bag.

“Miss, you'd better look at that note.” - Cooper leaned towards her and began to whisper. Decisively, not at all erotic.

On the piece of paper, written in capital letters, it said: “I have a bomb in my briefcase. I will use it if necessary. I want you to sit next to me. You are being hijacked.”

Schaffner did what he asked of her, and then quietly asked to see the bomb. Cooper opened his black bag just enough for Florence to see a red infernal machine.

“I want $200,000 in unmarked 20-dollar bills. I want two back parachutes and two front parachutes. When we land, I want a fuel truck ready to refuel. No funny stuff or I’ll do the job.” – he said quietly. 

Flight 305's pilot, William Scott contacted Seattle-Tacoma Airport air traffic control, and they alarmed the local police and the Feds. Dan Cooper wasn’t nervous and behaved very politely. He ordered another bourbon and soda, paid the bill (while insisting that Schaffner keeps the change) and ordered a good lunch for the crew when they land in Seattle.

At exactly 4:39 pm, Cooper was informed that his demands are accepted. Six minutes later the plane landed. The kidnapper got what he wanted, and allowed all passengers, Schaffner, and another flight attendant, Alice Hancock, to leave the aircraft. He then went to cockpit and agreed details with the pilot and co-pilot:

“We’ll fly southeast, toward Mexico City, with a speed below 190 kilometers per hour and altitude below 3,000 meters” – said Cooper. “We’ll land in Reno, Nevada to refuel, so that we can get to Mexico.”

At 7:30 pm, “Boeing 727” took off again. Two F-106 fighter jets followed him at a safe distance. At 8:00 pm red light flashed in the cockpit – the sign that the pressure in the passenger compartment has suddenly changed. They offered help to Cooper through the intercom, but there was no response from him. Neither at that point nor in the next two hours.

At 10:15 pm, the plane landed in Reno. It was immediately surrounded with FBI agents, the sheriff, local police officers… After long deliberation, they decided to enter the plane. The crew was all right, but there was no sign of Cooper. 

He jumped from a plane with $ 200,000 in his bag, right into the vastness of the State of Washington. His body was never found. Nor money, of course. The weather was terrible that night, so everyone assumed that he died. No man couldn’t survive that. Especially if no one is waiting on the ground to provide him with assistance, drive him where he needs to…. But, what if he indeed survived?

The story of D. B. Cooper – how he would be called later – is the only unsolved airline hijacking in American aviation history. It is also the only one where no one doesn’t know the identity of the kidnaper, nor his motives. Thanks to that, Cooper became part of American folklore, some kind of Billy the Kid and Jesse James. He is the hero in movies, series, and he is also the guy according to which the main character of the legendary “Twin Peaks” is named. He is a daring thief for whom everyone who has ever heard of him is cheering.

Even those Americans, who have no problem with their state or the law, love such outsiders.

“Here is a little guy who all by himself hijacked an airliner and got away with $200,000 of a big corporation's money, tweaked Uncle Sam's nose and has gotten away with it” - Ralph Himmelsbach evaluates today, a retired FBI agent, and one of many who, having given up looking for Cooper, wrote a book about his unsuccessful mission.

This case is probably still open because Cooper managed to embarrass one entire organization. The sum he took as ransom is not huge, even for standards at the time of the hijacking.  No one died, and no one was even hurt in his campaign - except FBI’s pride, something that this organization never publicly admitted.

In 2008, the Feds once again began to dig through the memory of Dan Cooper. 

“Would we still like to get our man? Absolutely.  And we have reignited the case.” - said a senior FBI official, and invited general public to visit the official website of the Bureau, where are, for the first time, uploaded sketches of Dan Cooper as he looked on that day, and how he would look today, 40 years later. There are also several 20-dollar bills that one boy found in 1980.

In these forty years, FBI has investigated more than 1,000 people and had, at one point, a list of ten suspects. Eventually, none of them completely fit Cooper’s description, or had a very good alibi. The case is now in the hands of agent Larry Carr, who is born in Seattle and was only four years old when  Cooper went on his mission, from which he emerged as a winner or a dead man, or maybe both.

The choice is yours, and there are plenty of versions. If you believe to a taxi driver who collects his customers from San Diego airport, D. B. Cooper was a gambler who died from cocaine overdose in California 15 years ago. If you believe to a persistent real estate agent, D. B. Cooper was her late husband, a heavy smoker and a former prisoner, who told her his most kept secret as he lay dying in Pensacola hospital. If you believe the FBI, D. B. Cooper died on that very night.

The best “lead” the Feds ever had was a Vietnam veteran named Richard McCoy. Just a few months after the famous November of 1971, he tried to imitate Cooper, but this time over Utah. Everything went according to plan - a bit gluttonously, he demanded $ 500,000 instead of "modest" 200,000 that D.B. Cooper took.  But when he jumped from the plane, he was caught and arrested. He was convicted, but he didn’t served his sentence for very long, because, in 1974, he was killed by prison guards for allegedly trying to escape.

In 1991, former FBI agent Russell Calame wrote a book in which he brought “strong evidence” that Cooper and McCoy were the same person. His former colleagues were not so convinced in his story, mainly because the descriptions given by both aircraft flight attendants did not match.

Then there is the Lyle Christiansen, Minnesota resident who spent years trying to convince the FBI that Cooper was, in fact, his deceased brother, Kenneth Christiansen, a former paratrooper. From 2003 and onwards, he regularly sent letters to the Feds, bringing new evidence that would substantiate his thesis. FBI never believed him. Just like they eliminated Duane Weber, who said on his deathbed that he is, in fact, Cooper. However, DNA tests showed that he was lying.

Mr. Carr, who is now in charge of the investigation, will say that a lot of things happened on that November, but that only a fraction from what was later told is actually the truth. In the first place, he actually doesn’t believe that Cooper was still alive when he fell on the ground.

“We originally thought Cooper was an experienced jumper, perhaps even a paratrooper” – says agent Carr. “We concluded after a few years this was simply not true. No experienced parachutist would have jumped in the pitch-black night, in the rain, with a 200-mile-an-hour wind in his face, wearing loafers and a trench coat. It was simply too risky. He also missed that his reserve 'chute was only for training, and had been sewn shut—something a skilled skydiver would have checked.”

If everything went according to his plan, Cooper would have landed somewhere in the Cascade Mountains, a mountain range of western North America  and southern west of Canada, where the highest peak is  about 4,300 meters above sea level. That part of America is far away from civilization, but not that much far that it is necessary more than 40 years for someone’s body to be found.

What is interesting is that, in 1980, near the Columbia River, a boy found a bundle of 20-dollar bills - the same ones that Cooper received on that November afternoon at the Seattle-Tacoma airport. But there was only $5.800 - What about the rest?

“Maybe a hydrologist can use the latest technology to trace the $5,800 in ransom money found in 1980 to where Cooper landed upstream. Or maybe someone just remembers that odd uncle.” – said Carr.

If investigators find just a bone that belongs to Dan Cooper, that will be enough for them to close the case with DNA analysis. But, as long as there is no body, the thought that he is still alive somewhere – or that he was alive for many years after 1971 – and that he is enjoying the Caribbean sun and drinks cocktails while watching movies and reading books about himself, will not disappear. And even agent Carr doesn’t want to write off this possibility.

“If he's alive today, he'd be about 85 years old. Maybe one day I'll be sitting at my desk and I'll get a call from an old man who says, 'You're not going to believe this story'”.

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Compensation – Admiral Lord Nelson

When he lost his right eye in a naval battle, famous British Admiral Horatio Nelson (1758-1805) demanded monetary compensation for his injury from the Royal Navy. He was told that he could not receive any kind of compensation if a ship doctor didn’t immediately recorded how exactly he lost his eye.

Nelson pursued this issue for several years, and eventually got a very small amount of money.

In the meantime, he also lost his right arm. Once more, he had to pursue monetary compensation from the Navy, but this time even longer.

“I guess I'll be rich when I loose a leg because it’s larger than both, the eye and the hand!” – Nelson said angrily when he was forced to humiliate himself in front of doctors.

Nelson, however, never lost his leg. He lost his life in the Battle of Trafalgar, in 1805.

In his testament, he emphasized that he doesn’t want to be buried in Westminster Abbey, along with other British great men. Allegedly, he had heard that the abbey was built on the landslide and that all the dead will slip into the Thames.

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The saddest billionaire- John Paul Getty III

He was known for his enormous wealth and inheritance, but also and for being kidnapped in Italy when he was a boy. Because of a heroin overdose when he was 25, he remained paralyzed for the rest of his life.

Most people do not understand the expression “The rich also cry”, and they are asking themselves why would the rich cry and be sad. However, in the case of billionaire John Paul Getty III (1956-2011), this expression is not far from reality. This successor of great oil empire, who died at the age of 54, had plenty of unfortunate episodes in his life. That is why now, after his death, which occurred due to failure of vital organs, he is called “the saddest billionaire”.

John Paul Getty III was also known as “Golden Hippie”. For those who knew Getty’s lifestyle this nickname is completely logical.  He spent much of his childhood in Rome, where he socialized with artists, and leftist bohemians. The Italian capital was also the place where his teenage idyll was brutally interrupted. There, when he was 16, John Paul Getty was kidnapped. His kidnappers demanded $ 17 million from his family, but Getty’s grandfather, John Paul Getty I (1892-1976), refused to pay them.

“I have 14 other grandchildren, and if I pay one penny now I’ll have 14 kidnapped grandchildren.” - said John Paul Getty I, at that time one of the richest people in the world and founder of California's famous museum that bears his name.

At the same time, his father, John Paul Getty II (1932-2003), was unable to pay that sum of money, because, at that time, he was rehabilitating from drug addiction in one rehabilitation center in London.

In the beginning, his family thought that his kidnapping was just a joke and they didn’t do anything. Four months later, a package arrived at the offices of a Rome newspaper. It contained a lock of red hair and a moldy human ear. A message that came along claimed that these belong to Getty, and threatened: "This is Paul's ear. If we don't get some money within 10 days, then the other ear will arrive. In other words, he will arrive in little bits."

The ransom was paid only after his grandfather, John Paul Getty I, managed to reduce the ransom to the figure of $ 2.8 million in cash with "bargaining". He borrowed that money to his son, Getty II, but he warned him that it was just a “loan” and that he expects his money back with 4% interest.

Soon after that, a truck driver spotted John Paul Getty III along the road, some 160 kilometers south of Naples. He spent five months in captivity. When he wanted to thank his grandfather for saving him, Getty I refused to talk to him.

John Paul Getty III was born in 1956, as the first child of John Paul Getty Jr. and actress Abigail Harris, who were already divorced when he was kidnapped. When he was 18, he married Gisela Martine Schmidt who was a photographer and an artist. In 1975, he got a son with Gisela, Balthazar Getty. He also adopted Gisela’s daughter, Anna from her first marriage, and gave her his surname. He and Gisela divorced in 1993.

Almost a decade before that, more precisely, in 1981, Getty suffered a stroke caused by heroine overdose. From then and on he needed constant care because he was strapped to a wheelchair. As a consequence of the stroke, Getty was quadriplegic and nearly blind.

Life of the Getty family was a movie-like tragic story. Getty dynasty made their first millions dealing with oil, but after that, they expanded their business to almost all branches. What is bizarre in the case of this family is the fact that a large number of its members died of a drug overdose.

Their empire was established by unusual oil tycoon John Paul Getty I, in the first half of the 20th century.  Getty I had five wives and five sons (one of his sons died at the age of 12).

Getty family was always in the spotlight. Until recently, they had  one of the strangest and richest couples in America – curly and physically neglected Peter Getty, who never did anything and is spending his time knitting, watching pornography and playing video games, and his wife Jacqui Getty, which is adorned by Hollywood stars. It is said that behind all those billions, Peter is nothing more than an abuser. His wife didn’t had the strength to leave him until he started to cheat in her with other women. Those who know Peter say that when he is travelling somewhere, he never caries a bag because he buys everything he needs when he arrives where he is going.

In 2006 when she was filing for divorce, Jacqui described her husband as a person who became heavily addicted to cocaine and soon after, started to, mentally and physically, abuse her.

“Peter had a very bad, violent temper during the last year or two of our marriage; he made at least one threat to kill me, he hit me so hard that he broke my forearm (not at a joint), he has choked me and physically pushed me.” – Jacqui described her husband in the divorce documents. “He told me 'I could kill you and get away with it”. She also said that Peter, because of his enormous wealth, has no sense for good and evil and that he often said to her: “I can do anything. Because I'm Getty”.

Anyway, Jacqui Getty is a famous stylist who worked on many movies. Among the first who noticed her talent was Demi Moor, who met Jacqui at one shop in the late eighties. It was Jacqui who picked a dress for Moor in the famous scene of the movie “Indecent proposal”, when Demi approaches Robert Redford.

Howard Hughes – playboy, pilot and a hermit

One of the most bizarre billionaires was Howard Hughes. Hughes was successful in everything he did, whether it was designing aircrafts, piloting, film production...he even managed to seduce Hollywood beauties like Katharine Hepburn.

In 1935, he constructed an airplane with whom he set an airspeed record of 567,46 km/h. Two years later, he set a transcontinental airspeed record for flying from one end of America to another. In 1938, he flew around the world in just 91 hours and 14 minutes.

However, due to an obsessive dedication to work, addiction to drugs and agonizing among many lovers, he suffered his first nervous breakdown. Soon after, he demanded that everyone who comes in contact with him, wears white gloves. After second nervous breakdown, he spent his days in a hotel, in a closed room, where he sat completely naked in a white leather armchair.

He spent the last years of his life wandering around the world. He resided in luxurious hotels but, before his arrival, his employees were obliged to sterilize the rooms where he stayed. When he arrived to Las Vegas in 1967, he didn’t have a reservation for a luxury suite at the Hotel “Desert Inn", so he bought the entire hotel. He also bought television station KLAS-TV, which had to show movies until late into the night so he wouldn’t be bored.

He travelled in a car with welded windows, in which he had installed a special air cleaner that cost more than the vehicle itself and occupied more space then the engine.

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