The thieves left no fingerprints behind and there were almost no witnesses, but the four robbers who tried to steal $5million in rare books from a university library were not master criminals.
In fact the four friends who wore almost comic disguises of fake moustaches, beards and wigs were amateur criminals and this was their first heist.
And they almost got away with it.
New film American Animals tells the story of one of the most audacious heists in U.S. history when three well off friends Spencer Reinhard, Warren Lipka, Eric Borsuk and Chas Allen decided to try and steal some rare books from a college library.
Is American Animals a true story?
Based on the story, the film includes interviews with the foursome who attempted the bizarre heist it stars Barry Keoghan, Evan Peters, Blake Jenner, Jared Abrahamson and Ann Dowd.
Spencer Reinhard and Warren Lipka were best friends from the age of eight – the former a talented painter and his friend a popular athletic scholarship student.
But once at college they drifted apart and Lipka ultimately dropped out and moved into a lucrative sideline selling fake IDs along with former football team mate Borsuk.
But the pair fell out over money and without his friend’s computer knowhow he recruited his old pal artist high-flier Reinhard to help.
Several weeks before Reinhard was approached by Lipka about the fake-ID business, he had been on a freshman-orientation tour of Transy, including the library and its exceptional collection of rare books and manuscripts.
“They take you in the Special Collections and show you these books,” he would later tell Vanity Fair , including Transylvania University’s prized Birds of America, by John James Audubon, a four-volume set of life-size engravings the pioneer wildlife artist completed in London in 1838.
The set was one of fewer than 200 produced. “I’d heard about them before, but I didn’t know anything about them. And the woman there says, ‘We had a set just like this that we sold four years ago for like $12 million.’ It could have been eight. I’m not sure, but it was a lot. It immediately had kind of sparked my imagination, like a fantasy.”
Slowly a germ of an idea began to form.
One day Reinhard and Lipka were sat in a car smoking weed when they started to discuss the idea of stealing the books.
What followed was an extraordinary tale of amateur criminals.
In between studying for exams Reinhard scoped out the library for security and found just a solitary librarian who required visitors to sign in and out.
Meanwhile Lipka worked on the problem of what to do with the books once they got them.
Eventually tracking down a "underworld contact" called Barry who gave them an email address in return for $500.
The two friends created an email account and sent a message claiming to have unspecified books in their possession.
"You need to come to Amsterdam", came the reply.
Travelling on a fake passport – again supplied by their underworld fixer – he met four men who although put off by his youth and angry he did not have the books with him told him crucial step of selling rare books: appraisal by a legitimate auction house.
After researching auction houses online, they singled out Christie’s in New York – "because no one would go to Christie’s with stolen books to get them appraised."
Who was in the crew?
Back in the US it was apparent that they were going to need help so they racked their brains over who they could trust.
Lipka’s old fake ID pal Borsuk was soon co-opted over pitchers of beer and pizza.
Then over the 2004 summer break from college they met Chas Allen – the fourth member of the gang – who was cutting lawns with Borsuk as a part time job.
In the autumn Lipka, skint after dropping out of college and closing down his fake ID business, moved into an unfurnished basement and focused full-time on the heist plan.
After initially laughing at the plan Allen apparently decided to join them.
In between football practice, classes, painting, and studying, Reinhard drew detailed sketches of the inside of the Special Collections Library and the adjacent Rare Book Room, making several appointments with the Special Collections librarian, Betty Jean Gooch, to scout the premises.
The others spent time in the library, too, taking notes on staff routines and movements and escape routes.
The men climbed onto dorm roofs and staked out the library for hours at a time, marking down the comings and goings of teachers, students, and security personnel.
They also searched the Internet, using such key terms as “auction house appraisals,” “stun guns,” and “Swiss bank accounts.”
For inspiration, they watched heist films like Ocean’s 11 and Snatch.
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What was their plan?
Their plan included three stages.
The first when disguised as old men they would arrive at the library, second when they carried out the robbery using a stun gun on the librarian, and third to getaway and take the books for appraisal before their theft is entered on a national database.
Lifting a scene straight from the film Reservoir Dogs, they assigned code names based on colour: Mr. Green (Reinhard), Mr. Yellow (Lipka), and Mr. Black (Borsuk) and Mr Pink (Allen).
Lipka made an appraisal appointment at Christie’s in New York for Walter Beckman, a pseudonym inspired by the soccer star David Beckham.
However, he made a fatal error and used the same email address for the Christie’s appointment as he did to view the books at the library.
The gang ordered stun guns online as well as cable ties, tape and a selection of disguises.
Their first attempt at the theft was aborted after the stun guns did not arrive, they could not find a space near the library to park and their makeshift disguises drew strange looks.
They decided to try again the next day – December 17 – and this time the robbery almost went to plan.
Inside the library rare books section two of the gang zapped the librarian with a stun pen, tied her up and blindfolded her.
They piled up the books on a bed sheet but they were heavier than they thought and they had to stuff some on backpacks and carried a large volume between them.
However, they couldn’t find the fire escape they planned to use and were forced to make a run for it after another librarian found her colleague tied up and raised the alarm.
Lipka and Borsuk got out believing that they had escaped with next to nothing.
In fact, wedged in their backpacks was nearly three-quarters of a million dollars’ worth of books and manuscripts: an 1859 first edition of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection ($25,000), an illuminated manuscript from 1425 ($200,000), a set of the two-volume 15th-century horticultural masterpiece entitled Hortus Sanitatis ($450,000), 20 original Audubon pencil drawings ($50,000), and Audubon’s A Synopsis of the Birds of North America ($10,000).
It seemed they had got away with it as there were no good descriptions of them and no one had their number plate.
That weekend they drove to New York to get the books appraised however it did not go to plan.
The junior member of staff they saw was suspicious of their youth and declined to help but took Reinhard’s mobile phone number.
Not getting the appraisal was a big blow and they returned home to stew on what to do next.
How were they caught?
Over the next few weeks the FBI investigation was painfully slow and it was not until January when they got computer information revealing the email address used to book the library visit had been used to email Christie’s.
There the police got CCTV footage of Reinhard and Lipka and traced the phone to the former’s parents house.
The FBI followed the boys and soon uncovered their co-conspirators.
On February 11, 2005, a SWAT raided the house where they were living and found the boys, the books and a five-page typed plan for the heist, an accounting book, wigs, instructions for opening a Swiss bank account, and stun guns, which had apparently arrived after the robbery.
The men were given identical seven year sentences.
Talking to Vanity Fair from jail Borsuk said: “We did the robbery as a way to escape.
“I think we all knew that we wanted something different, and we had to break away from where we were living. If we got away with it, we’d be in Europe living this crazy life thinking we were Ocean’s 11 types. If not, we were going to get caught and it was going to be a crazy story.”
American Animals is out soon.
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