The Swedish Smash and Grab Helicopter Heist
Should they be moving like that?
A smash and grab is a pretty self-explanatory type of heist, you smash into somewhere using brute force, grab what you can, and leave.
Usually, these types of heists are low rewards but sometimes, the complexity of pulling off a smash-and-grab can cement the crime as one of the most daring in history. And depending on where you do it, you might not even get much or any jail time.
I’m not saying go do a smash and grab, in fact, I’m saying don’t but if you were already going to, Sweden in 2009 wouldn’t have been such a bad place to do it… but seriously don’t.
Today we’re continuing our heist series by looking at the first heist in Sweden to involve a helicopter.
Related Article: The Memorial Day Heist of 1980
Part One - The Heist
In the early hours of September 23rd, 2009 the overnight crew of the G4S Cash Service building in Vastberga, Sweden were going about their daily tasks, including counting money on the 6th floor after receiving it from the vault on the 2nd floor. It was a poor building design that couldn’t be changed but it would unknowingly make them a target.
Strange Sounds
At around 5:15 am the group leader Oskar Lindgren began hearing a rattling of the windows, at first he thought nothing of it, attributing the sounds to the idling trucks outside waiting for the cash. The truck sounds were so common, that the team would often joke about it sounding like someone was coming to rob them through the pyramid skylight above.
But this time, the vibrations were felt and heard in the insulated cash room, and that wasn’t a joking matter. It was clear it wasn’t just trucks.
Oskar ordered the team to stop and turn off the machines so he could hear the sound better, it was so out of place they called the security team on the 3rd floor to investigate.
Strangers at the Skylight
Oskar then left the insulated room to investigate the commotion. Outside of the room, on the far side of the building, he saw two men all dressed in black wearing motorcycle helmets and a third coming down a set of ladders leading to the skylight.
Around the ladders on the floor lay broken glass and Oskar realized what was going on. He shouted to his team alerting them they were being robbed and triggered the panic alarm.
He ran back shutting two doors behind him, one held by a simple bolt lock and the other a thick steel door. He had his team send what money they had already counted down the elevator to the vault and then instructed them to padlock the cages with the uncounted cash. They then ran to the corner of the room and waited for the police to arrive.
The main door was a Forced Entry Resistant door, designed to withstand up to 15 minutes of heavy-duty attacks. The windows beyond the door were thick bulletproof glass. The team was sure the police would arrive before the men were even close to reaching them.
Prepared Professionals
Several minutes away, Johan Petersson, the director of security for the GS4 received a call from the security team; they were being robbed. Petersson grabbed his laptop and rushed over to the building. Police were already on their way and were prepping their helicopters to meet him there.
Except what Petersson didn’t know was that the police couldn’t get to the building and the helicopters weren’t on their way.
See, the police were on their way but were forced to stop about 650 yards out because along the 5 different roads leading to the building they found chains connecting caltrops designed to pierce any tire that drove over it. Caltrops are large metal spikes usually three or four-pronged, no car is driving over one unscathed.
But the helicopters had to be on their way right? Well, also no.
Twenty-five miles away at the hangar, two pilots arrived ready to take two choppers to the G4S building but, from a distance, they could see two metal boxes with a red light blinking. One was at the entrance door and the other was on the tarmac.
They were bombs and they were ready to explode. The pilots couldn’t risk them exploding near the jet fuel and couldn’t be certain there weren’t any more out of view.
This led police to realize the people robbing the G4S building weren’t just a bunch of opportunists with a helicopter, they were dealing with professionals.
Historic Heist
Back in the building Oskar and his team had now heard the third explosion and the latest one told them the thieves were close to getting into the room. Oskar made the decision to break protocol and evacuate his team, leading them down the elevator and out to the second-floor vault. Moments later a fourth explosion allowed the thieves into the room.
Hundreds of yards away, Johan Petersson, finds the police command center, sets up his laptop, and taps into a live feed of the cameras. The police, having heard the explosions and knowing they were dealing with professionals, refused to go into the building until they were certain it was safe.
Until then, they could do nothing but watch with Petersson as one of the three men used a buzzsaw to break through the padlocks on the cash cages while the other two walked around with weapons in their hands waiting for their moment. They watched them pack millions of bills into their sacks.
They watched them for 15 minutes and then the men stopped. They looked like they wanted to continue but maybe they were worried the police were about to come in. They didn’t know it, but the police were nowhere near entering the building.
The men grabbed their sacks of cash, headed back to the ladders, and lifted their money up through the skylight. The police down on the ground could see the helicopter, which had been hovering for the last 30 minutes, land, pick up the men, and then fly off as if they hadn’t just executed a history-making heist with no one able to stop them.
Part 2 - Executing the Heist
In early September, among the joggers at a marina in Stockholm, Goran Bojovic meets with two other men, possibly to finalize a plan that had been set in motion for months. A plan consisting of at least a dozen others all working in tandem and in constant communication to ensure every step goes right, and here’s how they did it.
The Morning of
On the morning of September 23rd, the day of the heist, at 2:55 am Nemanja Alic watched the police helicopters arrive at the hangar 25 miles away from the G4S building. Using a prepaid phone he called Goran confirming the helicopters had landed.
Over the course of the next hour and a half, various other prepaid phones called Goran and confirmed they were in the right locations, including a helicopter pilot named Alexander Erickson. Four different prepaid phones also check in ready with the caltrops and chains, and two other phones check in both at different post-heist rendezvous points.
At around 4:30 am Nemanja runs towards the police hangar with metal boxes placing one at the entrance and another on the tarmac. Once those were placed, Nemanja removes his gloves, places them several yards away in tall grass, and lights them on fire to destroy evidence.
Five minutes later, Alexander Erickson steals a helicopter and heads toward Goran’s position. Once there, the men attach ladders with zip ties to the helicopter and pack their equipment including dynamite, a sledgehammer, nitrate crystals, several empty coke cans (that’ll make sense later, I promise), empty sacks, and a large buzzsaw.
Several minutes later, Goran, Alexander, and two other men made their way to the G4S building.
At the same time, across town, Alexander’s friend has borrowed his car and gets into a small accident with another car. The two men in the other car and Alexander’s friend, are all part of the heist, they take time-stamped pictures of the scrapes on the car, placing Alexander’s car and alibi nowhere near the G4S building.
Breaking In
The moment the helicopter arrives at the G4S building, three men hop out, unload the gear, and remove the ladder. At this point, all three are in all black and wearing helmets so it’s not known who did what but one grabs a sledgehammer and strikes the skylight multiple times eventually shattering it.
The other two place ladders going from the roof to the 6th floor of the building and begin carrying their gear down. On the far side of the building, they see Oskar trigger the panic alarm and now they know they are on the clock. But they actually have another man on the street relaying information.
The three rush over to the bulletproof glass, placing a dynamite charge to shatter it. They enter the office, use the same sledgehammer to break through the bolt lock, and come face-to-face with the large steel door. Using a magnet they attach an empty coke can filled with nitrate crystals to the handle of the steel door and ignite it.
It takes three attempts but they get through, one immediately starts working on the padlocks using a large buzzsaw while the other two prep the sacks to start grabbing the cash. After several sacks are filled and, possibly after receiving word from their contact on the street, the men decide they’ve taken enough and make their way back to the helicopter.
Clean Getaway?
On their way up the ladders carrying the heavy sacks of cash one man slips, cutting his hand on one of the ladders but without missing a beat they continue up and onto the roof. Once everyone and everything is back on the chopper, Alexander takes off heading south as the police watch helplessly below.
The chopper makes two stops, one in the suburbs of Norsborg where one or two men get out, and the next near Lake Malaren where witnesses report hearing speedboats take off moments later. Alexander then takes the chopper into the forest abandoning it along with the extra zip ties and a GPS.
Perfect crime? Absolutely not. Many of you reading might have already picked up on a few mistakes the men made but we’ll get to that shortly. In the end, the G4S building was estimated to have a billion Swedish kronas equivalent to $150 million, the men only took about 39 million or about $7 million at the time.
And just several days later both Goran and Alexander were arrested but it wasn’t just their mistakes that got them caught, they were doomed from the start.
Part 3 - Downfall
The National Criminal Investigations Department in Sweden known as the RKP were in charge of investigating the robbery and, here’s the thing, they already had Goran Bojovic under surveillance since late August.
Watching Goran
In fact, while Goran finalized his plan in early September with his two associates at the marina, one of the joggers was actually an undercover officer and at this point, Goran’s car and phone had been bugged.
Why? Because on August 27th the Serbian Foreign Ministry alerted the Swedish Authorities that Goran had been in contact with a man by the name of Milan Sevo, a former mafioso.
The conversation between Goran and Milan revealed a heist was going to take place at a cash repository and it would involve a helicopter because why not? The robbery that did occur on September 23rd was the first in Swedish history to involve a helicopter so unless everyone was just planning helicopter heists on cash repositories all at the same time, Goran was clearly a prime suspect.
And as a suspect, they paid more attention to the trace they had placed on his phone and found it matched the locations of the prepaid phones that were used in the heist.
From here the police pulled the records of that prepaid phone and found it was contacting a dozen other prepaid phones. Those phones only contacted each other and created a sort of closed web between them, police could then use this to compare to other suspects. Alexander Erickson was arrested shortly after while trying to book a trip to the Canary Islands.
More Arrests
Then there was the DNA, oh that pesky DNA, the man who cut his hand while going up the ladder, left blood at the scene. This was matched to Safa Kadhum who was later arrested in the Dominican Republic. Nemanja Alic’s attempts at burning his gloves didn’t go so well either.
The police were able to retrieve DNA from the pieces of the glove that were left and partial prints from the bombs that turned out to just be an empty metal box with a red light bulb powered by a battery. The zip ties also left at the scene of the abandoned helicopter provided some DNA, the men who helped create Alexander’s alibi were also arrested and questioned.
In the end, 10 men were arrested in connection to the heist, with only 7 serving any actual jail time anywhere between 1 year and 7 years. Yea, that’s not a typo, they only served 1 to 7 years in jail, which might not be so crazy if the police had retrieved all the money but they didn’t.
Less than half of the millions were ever found and it’s thought that up to 13, if not more, thieves were actually involved in the heist in some capacity. At this point, we may never know the full extent of the heist nor where all the money went.
And that’s the story of the first heist in Swedish history to use a helicopter. A well-planned and well-executed heist that was brought to justice because of mistakes and a tip from Serbian officials.
