The Sewer Tunnel Heist - Societe Generale
Over the Bastille Day weekend of July 1976 a gang led by Albert Spaggiari tunnelled from the city's sewers into the vault of this Societe Generale branch on the avenue Jean Medecin, spent two days forcing more than 300 safe-deposit boxes and escaped with tens of millions of francs without firing a shot, leaving the slogan without weapons, without hatred, without violence; the money was never recovered.
About this place
This stretch of the avenue Jean Medecin looks like any other busy shopping street, which is exactly why the crime that happened beneath it became a legend. In July 1976 a gang led by a Nice photographer and former soldier named Albert Spaggiari carried out what the French still call the heist of the century. For weeks they had dug an eight-metre tunnel from the city's sewer network up to the strongroom of the Societe Generale bank here. Over the long Bastille Day weekend, when the bank was closed, they broke through the vault floor and spent some fifty hours inside, forcing open more than 300 safe-deposit boxes and gathering an estimated forty to fifty million francs in cash, gold and jewels. They left behind a now-famous slogan meaning without weapons, without hatred, without violence, and welded the vault door shut behind them. Most of the fortune was never recovered. Spaggiari was arrested months later but famously leapt from a window during questioning and escaped, remaining a fugitive until his death in 1989; more than a dozen gang members were convicted.
Key facts
- 46 million francs — The widely cited estimate of the haul in cash, gold and jewels, with figures varying by account.
- 371 safe-deposit boxes — The number of boxes the gang is said to have forced open during the raid.
- 1976 year — The heist took place over the Bastille Day weekend of July 1976.
📍 Avenue Jean Médecin, 06000, Nice