Addicted to the Thrill: Bill Mason

• Bill Mason was an average property manager by day and a notorious cat burglar at night. He climbed walls, tiptoed across parapets, climbed onto balconies, and shimmed through barely open windows while unaware owners slept.

• Mason carried out a strategy that had been in the works for weeks on a stormy night. He climbed the entire 15 floors of the Dr. Armand Hammer apartment building's exterior with all of his strength, where he discovered the balcony door to be unlocked.

• He threw Mrs. Hammer's jewelry box's contents, which were worth several million dollars, into one of her pillowcases.

• Ironically, Mason discovered the front door was locked with a simple, pickable lock as he was leaving.

• He escaped the building through an unlocked window on the third floor, and to help lower himself to the ground, he used a grappling hook.

• Mason worked hard to hide his tracks at every turn; not a single suspect was named by the police.

• Mason stole about £120 million in jewelry over the course of 20 years while preying on the rich and famous, including Johnny "Tarzan" Weissmuller, an Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer and actor.

• The adrenaline surge he felt during the robbery and the glamour of these furtive brushes with the stars were addictive.

• Mason's memoir Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief, which was published in 2003, details how he eventually got caught in a sting operation.

Related Crimes

• From 1950 to 1998, Peter Scott, a Northern Irish cat thief, commits approximately 150 burglaries before being apprehended in 1952.

  • In 1960, he stole a $260,000 necklace belonging to actress Sophia Loren.

• From 2004 to 2006, Ignacio del Rio, a skilled Spanish thief, admits to more over 1,000 burglaries perpetrated in Los Angeles over a two-year period, stealing $2 million in jewelry and a $10 million Degas painting.

It’s Only So Much Scrap Gold

• For football fans in England, 1966 will always be remembered as the only time their team ever won the World Cup.

• Bobby Moore, the captain of England, nearly had to hold a replica trophy in celebration because the renowned Jules Rimet Trophy had been stolen four months prior to the tournament's start.

• The cup was guarded while it was on display in Westminster's Central Hall in London, but thieves broke open the glass case while patrols weren't looking.

• When a note demanding £15,000 (£196,000 today) for the trophy's safe return arrived, the Metropolitan Police were still no closer to a resolution despite a thorough investigation.

• Edward Betchley, a small-time criminal, was apprehended during an attempt to entrap the sender, but the trophy was never produced.

• The missing cup wasn't discovered until Pickles, a collie dog being walked by his owner David Corbett, discovered a package buried beneath the hedge outside his home in Upper Norwood, south London.

• Regarding how crime is "valued" and whether some items are too well-known to be worth stealing, the story is still compelling.

• The original trophy would have been worth very little if it had been melted down, which is the only way a gang could have gotten rid of it. However, it had a priceless symbolic meaning.

• The original was replaced with a replica, which sold for £254,000 in 1997 at auction.

Related Crimes

• On October 9, 1964, surfing champion Jack Roland Murphy infiltrates the American Museum of Natural History's Gems and Minerals Hall and steals J.P. Morgan's jewel collection.

• On December 19, 1983, The Jules Rimet Trophy is thieved yet again, this time from Rio de Janeiro's Brazilian Football Confederation. It has never been found.

• On December 4, 2014, Seven men break into the Red Bull Racing offices in England with a van and steal sixty Formula One trophy.