Low flying 747 landing just over the heads of tourist
French thieves dig their way into banks vault.
Featured Video Presentation
If you have ever gone on vacation to the Caribbean I am sure
you are familiar with the white sandy beaches, deep blue waters,
and warm climate that makes much of the Caribbean a paradise on
earth. But the sunset beach at St. Martin has one extra feature
that makes it stand out from the rest. It is located just in front
of a international airport were tourist can stand on the beach
while giant airplanes fly just a few feet over their head. Check
out some of the videos that people have taken standing on the
beach.
"without hatred, without violence
and without weapons"
For the third time this year so called termite gangs
have attempted to tunnel their way into Paris banks. In the last
attempt a gang of thieves dug a tunnel from a near by subway station
into the basement of a bank in the early morning hours of Sunday
but failed to seize any cash after they could not gain access
to the banks vault.
They aborted the attempt and started a fire to cover their tracks,
which set off alarms and alerted police. Digging equipment, including
a pneumatic drill, was found at the scene.
Last weekend, a Credit Lyonnais branch in Paris was broken into
by tunnel-digging robbers who cracked almost 200 private safes,
according to police. A branch of Caisse d'Epargne in a Paris suburb
was also robbed on New Years Eve in a similar fashion.
The French media has compared the resent tunnel robberies to
the Spaggiari Affair, a heist masterminded by Albert Spaggiari
more than 30 years ago.
In 1976 Albert Spaggiari put together a gang of thieves with
the help of professional gangsters from Marseille, and dug there
way into a Paris bank during a public holiday. They spent two
days and two nights there and made off with more than 32 million
dollars worth of cash and valuables.
According to some accounts, Spaggiari brought his men a meal
including wine and pâté, and reportedly they sat
down in the vault for a picnic lunch, after welding the vault
door shut from the inside. The gang spent hours picking through
the various safety deposit boxes. Before they left on July 20,
they left this message on the walls of the vault: sans haine,
sans violence et sans arme ("without hatred, without violence
and without weapons"). This was Spaggiari's message to the
world, implying that he considered himself to be something more
than a common thief.
At first the French police were baffled. However, by the end
of October, they were closing in, and on a tip from a former girlfriend,
they arrested one of the errant thieves. After a lengthy interrogation
he turned over the entire gang, including Spaggiari. When Spaggiari,
who had been accompanying the mayor of Nice Jacques Médecin
in the Far East as a photographer, returned to Nice, he was arrested
at the airport.
During his case hearings, Spaggiari devised an escape plan. He
made a fictitious document which he claimed as evidence. He made
the document coded so it had to be deciphered by the judge. He
distracted judge Richard Bouaziz with this document and then jumped
out of a window, landed safely on a parked car and escaped on
a waiting motorcycle. Some reports claimed that the owner of the
car later received a 5000 francs cheque in the mail for the damage
to his roof.
Spaggiari remained free for the rest of his life. He was sentenced
in absentia to a life in prison. Reportedly he underwent plastic
surgery and spent probably most of the rest of his life in Argentina.
However, it is reported that Spaggiari came several times clandestinely
to France, visiting his mother or his wife "Audi".
According to a CIA document declassified in 2000 and published
by the national security archive, the US government was in contact
with Spaggiari in the early 1980s. Information contained in the
document suggests that Spaggiari (code name "Daniel")
conducted operations in south America on behalf of the CIA.
Spaggiari was said to have died under "mysterious circumstances".
The press reported that his body was found by his mother in front
of her home on June 10, 1989, having been carried back to France
by unknown friends.
Albert Spaggiari
"without hatred, without violence
and without weapons"
Do you remember when you were in grade
school or high school and you got caught kissing in public. Back
in those days, public display of affection ( P.D.A. ) was dealt
with a stern warning or detention. Here in the USA that is about
as harsh of a punishment that most kids got. But in the Muslim
world kissing in public is a serious crime as a British couple
just found out.
DUBAI (Reuters) – A Dubai court Sunday upheld
a one-month jail sentence given to a British pair for kissing
in public, media reports said.
The British man living in Dubai and a female friend were arrested
in November on charges of kissing intimately in public and consuming
alcohol. An Emirati mother had complained her child had seen their
indiscretion.
The case is the third time in under two years that Britons have
fallen foul of indecency laws in Dubai, a Muslim emirate popular
with sun-seeking Western tourists and expatriates.
The defendants are consulting their lawyer on whether to appeal
Sunday's ruling before a cassation court, the website of the daily
Gulf News reported.
The pair, who had been free on bail, are also to pay a fine of
1,000 dirhams ($272) for illegal consumption of alcohol and will
be deported after serving their jail term, the website said.
Dubai's foreign population expanded rapidly in recent years as
expatriates flocked to the Gulf Arab trade and tourism hub for
its tax-free earnings and year-round sunshine.
The changes have challenged the Emirati population, now vastly
outnumbered by foreigners, raising concerns that the rapid pace
of growth is a threat to their social and religious identity in
what remains a deeply conservative region.
In 2008, a British couple narrowly escaped jail after a court
found them guilty of engaging in drunken sexual activity out of
wedlock and in public on a beach in the emirate.
They were sentenced to three months in prison followed by deportation,
but had their jail terms overturned on appeal.
In another case this year, a British couple who shared a hotel
room managed to escape trial in Dubai for having sex out of wedlock
by producing a marriage certificate.
Turkish pop-singer Metin Senturk became the world's
fastest unaccompanied blind driver on Friday and said he felt
he had danced with death.
Senturk wept as he emerged from a Ferrari F430 at Urfa airport
in eastern Turkey to learn from Guinness World Records officials
his average speed of 292.89 kph broke the previous record of 284
kph, held by a British bank manager.
"I don't think there are any words to describe this feeling.
I am really happy. It was really hard, like a dance with death,"
said Senturk, who has been blind since the age of three.
Following Senturk in a separate vehicle was former rally driver
Volkan Isik, who guided the blind man by radio.
