A character I'm working on is a thief but he's famous for stealing things that are thought impossible to steal or are very valuable. I'm just looking for ideas of what he could steal and places he could rob.
What is his general setting? Like- is he a techie? does he just like the challenge? etc? Before I throw out crazy stuff like CERN or Watson, it would be nice to know.
It takes place in the modern world but he's like a magician (even moon lights as one) the idea is that he's always a step ahead of the police and nobody really knows who he is. He's a bit of a blend (hacker, art thief, etc) and that's part of the mystery he pulls off jobs that would normally require a team and nobody knows who how he does it.
How about something large like the round table of King Arthur in Winchester? That thing is like 4000 pounds, although it’s been a few years so my memory might be a bit hazy. Something weird, like an electric death chair from a prison? The amount of effort he’ll have to go through to steal something insignificant might be just to fool around? I think if you’re going for something of high value like the famous painting Mona Lisa might be too easy unless you know in depths their security system and how to potentially surpass it to create a plausible scenario (as high value paintings/items often get stolen within stories). Further, surprise us!
Spear of Destiny. Could make a very interesting story and could go many directions. Authorities could get on his trail because he creates a new stage show that is roman based and he gets put on a cross, stabbed, and bursts into doves, and they see it as him rubbing their faces in it.
A guy I know who's a cop in seattle told me about an alert they had come through about a team that burgled an ice cream warehouse .. 'suspects are believed to be much fatter than they were'
'Hatton Garden' was supposed to be the heist of the century. '...treachery of the Russian mafia, mastercraft on behalf of Islamic State brotherhoods?' speculated the journalist to camera, and we admired them, no clues, the robbers disappeared into ether with 400 billion-million of other, rich people's money & jewels. 'Shall we ever know the great minds behind this tremendous outrage?' We all chortled into cocoas, 'good luck to those guys, I'm going to bed, work in the morning,' I said. But then a week later, police checked security cameras. One of the gang was so old & decrepit he parked his car round the corner, didn't want to walk too far to the vault. All the geriatric [over 40 at least, some were 77/79 years old, no offense J] were captured - except for one guy - he is still at large, probably smoking a cigar, smearing bowls of cocaine over his butt cheeks, swimming in Ukrainian prostitutes - on a waterbed in North Korea. He is my inspiration.
The sacred a revered shrine of cheetoes kept in Club 33 in Disney Land, that is coveted and worshiped by the Illuminati on the 5th Tuesday of every 13.5 years.
I know your post is a few days old, but I just saw it and wanted to comment on this line: Callous disregard, indeed. Savages.
Perhaps he steals items with a value based on reputation. If he steals in a way that would normally require a team, then he's a person with varied skills, and that (to me) suggests he's something of a show-off. Maybe it's not what he steals, but its reputation as an "unstealable" item that draws him. Historical documents, famous museum artifacts, data from high-security facilities, jewels, instruments, gold-plated turds with sentimental value for their owners, whatever. Of course, items long-considered to be secure are likely worth a lot of money to begin with. Question: what's he do with his stolen goods? Does he steal to sell the stuff? Does he keep it? Does he ransom it back to its owner? If he's going after, say, The David, he's not going to be able to sell it easily, so maybe he "sells" it back to the owner instead?
It's like that story about the hijacking of a truckful of Viagra. Police were on the lookout for hardened criminals.
How about the theft of bearer stock certificates. They are a system used to pass extremely valuable stocks in over seas trades without paying the dues (which can be tens of thousands of dollars some times). Essentially who ever holds them, has all the shares listed on the certificate. They are not targeted for theft because they are normally only used in transit on ships, and now planes (not ideal locations for theft, unpredictable) and only used by extremely powerful people who need to rapidly move large sums of money (dangerous, crime lords, royal families, executives), and not very well known (rare). They are essentially barer bonds that give dividends instead of just paying out once.
on the computer hacking side... I would say going after a single day worth of transactions from Visa, or Master Card would yield a cool billion at least. As for one of the most secure pieces of information on the planet, it would be the stock trading list of the Exxon corporation. It would technically be insider trading. However, the list we are talking about here is actually capable of moving the market up or down. It's highly protected, but it's something someone could do and remain anonymous. The BIS bank of international settlements could be another high-value target. As for objects, I would probably be thinking along the lines of the Vatican vaults... ie. things like the sword of Charlemagne, or going after some fictional documents that could change the world perhaps tie back to the knights templar, and the Roman empire.
The Ring of the Fisherman Joaquin Phoenix* *it's possible I'm feeling a little slaphappy at the moment...
