Speaker A
Yenni is working the night shift at a cash depot in Sweden. She's counting banknotes, tons of money. But by now, it's just pieces of paper to her.
A detailed recount of the 2009 Vesta helicopter bank heist in Sweden, revealing the robbers' tactics and the police response.
Key Takeaways
- The Vesta heist was a highly coordinated and unprecedented helicopter bank robbery in Sweden.
- Police were outmatched due to delayed response and physical roadblocks set by robbers.
- Employees were trapped in a sealed airlock, highlighting the robbers' control over the situation.
- The investigation uncovered international links and relied on unexpected evidence like fast food security footage.
- Security firms like G4S faced criticism for their handling and communication after the heist.
Summary
- Yenni works the night shift at a Swedish cash depot where robbers use a helicopter to execute a daring heist.
- The robbers strike multiple locations simultaneously, overwhelming police and stealing millions in cash.
- The heist involves precise helicopter landing, use of explosives, and cutting through reinforced steel cages.
- Police response is delayed despite proximity, with obstacles like spike-studded chains on roads.
- Employees are trapped in a sealed airlock during the robbery, unable to communicate or escape.
- The robbers remain calm and efficient, suggesting careful planning and confidence in their escape.
- The investigation leads to Eastern Europe, with a McDonald's security camera providing a crucial clue.
- The heist is notable for being the first in Sweden to use a helicopter and for the large sum stolen.
- The security company G4S, responsible for the depot, remains largely silent post-robbery.
- The video also touches on data privacy issues and predatory marketing unrelated to the heist.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
Routine, really, just like these headphones she and the others are wearing to block out the noise. But suddenly, a new sound starts to creep in.
Speaker A
Wait, is that a helicopter? This is the beginning of one of the most spectacular bank heists in history.
Speaker A
Robbers will strike several locations across Sweden at the exact same time. The police will be outmatched, the authorities humiliated, and millions in cash will be stolen. The chase will lead investigators to Eastern Europe. And of all things, the security camera at a
Speaker A
local McDonald's will provide a crucial clue. We dug through countless court documents to piece together how the Vesta heist actually went down and who was really behind it. Heat. Heat.
Speaker A
September 23, 2009. Spectacular robberies in Sweden have been making headlines for several years now. But this heist tops everything. As the international press turns its attention to the small town of Vestga, the authorities are clueless. How much money
Speaker A
was stolen? How many robbers were involved? And why couldn't the police stop them? According to a Swedish daily newspaper, police didn't reach the cash depot until 30 minutes after the alarm was triggered. Meanwhile, the nearest police station is only a 15-minute walk
Speaker A
away. What happened? Official statements are vague. The security company that owns the cash depot stays quiet, too.
Speaker A
G4S is one of the largest security firms in the world. They install security systems and protect sites such as nuclear power plants in the US and even the Pentagon. Right before the end of the month, depots like this one are
Speaker A
packed with cash, so people across Sweden can withdraw their salaries the moment the money arrives. A pretty good time to strike. So far, only one thing is clear. This is the first robbery in Sweden to use a helicopter, a Bell 206.
Speaker A
It's a relatively small, light chopper, one of the bestselling models ever. It can carry five people, including the pilot, but it isn't built for heavy loads. A well-known Swedish criminologist speculates that the robbers could have stolen up to a
Speaker A
billion kronor from the depot. Back then, about 130 million. Helicopter experts, on the other hand, say that carrying that much cash, it should have crashed. So, how the hell did they pull this off?
Speaker A
September 23, the early morning hours. Mittinga, a small town known for its sea views and peaceful atmosphere, is asleep. Alongside holiday homes, the town also has a hangar housing these two helicopters. They belong to the Stockholm police.
Speaker A
And this man sneaking through the bushes has his eye on them. Under each arm, he's carrying a plastic box. The man places the first box in front of the hangar. Then he moves to the back and places the second one. Then he returns
Speaker A
to the hangar's entrance and pulls out a hatchet. He smashes the numbered entry pad several times. Finally, he disappears back into the darkness.
Speaker A
And then nothing happens. The man walks to the nearest bus stop and gets rid of his gear. His part of the job is done.
Speaker A
Now it's up to the others. Back at the depot down here, Yenni and her colleagues are counting cash. Up here, a Bell 206 barrels toward the building.
Speaker A
With remarkable precision, it lands on the roof. Perfectly positioned between the glass pyramid and the edge. Three people jump out. One is carrying a submachine gun. Another runs straight toward the pyramid and swings a huge sledgehammer at the glass
Speaker A
again and again. Meanwhile, his accomplice calmly unloads his gear, explosives, climbing ropes, and mailbags.
Speaker A
Two ladders are attached to the helicopter's skids. The robbers detach one of them and set it down beside the chopper. After a few more swings, the glass gives way. The helicopter lifts off. The robbers enter the building.
Speaker A
Yenni's boss spots them. He knows they're coming for the counting room, so he rushes back and yells, "Secure the money." Then he triggers the alarm and calls building security. Yenni still doesn't fully clock what's going on, but her
Speaker A
boss's instructions are clear. The cash has to be locked away in these cages made of reinforced steel secured with padlocks.
Speaker A
It's still quiet at the police station, about a 10-minute drive from Vesperga. Inspector Guran Palm is about to finish his shift. He's waiting for his colleague to take over when suddenly the alarm sounds. Immediately, Inspector Palm rushes to his car. A colleague
Speaker A
jumps in after him. They're told that the alarm came from the G4S cash depot.
Speaker A
Helicopter, armed men on the roof. Palm speeds toward the scene. He feels like he's starring in a Hollywood movie.
Speaker A
Soon, they're closing in on the depot when Palm spots something on the road. The officers jump out of the car to find out what just happened. Chains stretched across the entire road and studded with spikes.
Speaker A
The robbers are inside the building now. They set up a ladder to climb up to the sixth floor. The main vault where the money is usually stored is on the second floor, but the counting room is up here.
Speaker A
To get there, this glass pane needs to go. Hitting it with a sledgehammer doesn't work. So, the robber uses explosives. He presses a bomb made of dynamite against the glass, connects a wire, and detonates it.
Speaker A
They enter the office and smash through this simple door. Now, just a single steel door separates the robbers from the cash depot's staff. In the counting room, the staff is still frantically securing the money. When they hear the
Speaker A
explosion, they panic. The team leader has been trained for a lot of things, but not for this. Then there's another explosion.
Speaker A
The robbers are trying to get through the door. The explosion mangles the metal around the handle, but it stays intact. But after a third explosion, smoke enters the room. The staff needs to get out of here fast. The team leader
Speaker A
orders everyone into the main vault on the second floor. They leave the room through a secondary exit, take the stairs down several floors, and enter an airlock just outside the main vault. The airlock is designed for one person. Now
Speaker A
14 people have to squeeze inside, including a pregnant woman. In this hermetically sealed room, there's no cell reception. The group leader can't call building security or anyone else.
Speaker A
And the door to the vault won't open. They're stuck. Their colleagues in the vault room are also panicking. Building security has instructed them to keep the airlock door closed. They have no visual on the robbers. Maybe they're even
Speaker A
hiding among the employees in the airlock. It's so cramped in here that no one can move. The air is stuffy, the heat almost unbearable. Yenni's colleague struggles to pull out a photo of her daughter. If the robbers want to get
Speaker A
into the vault by blowing their way through the airlock, no one here will survive.
Speaker A
Meanwhile, the robbers have entered the counting room. They carve into the cages' padlocks with a buzz saw. The locks are gone within seconds. While they're packing, they seem oddly calm, as if they know that no one will catch them
Speaker A
anytime soon. Robbing a place is a pretty unethical way to make money. But let's look at this list real quick, rural and barely making it. For this one, ethnic second city strugglers, or our personal favorite, credit-crunched city families. These are real marketing
Speaker A
lists full of vulnerable people to be targeted by predatory ads. Hey, we heard you're broke. Worried about securing your kid's future? How about you try some gambling? Data brokers make these lists. They find out everything about you, compile it, and sell all your info
Speaker A
in bulk. This industry is huge, and it's insane just how much money they make off you. Let Incogn deal with them. They fight the data brokers for you, and you can easily request custom removals. I don't want to be found at a people
Speaker A
search site, for example. Do you? Incogn sure data stays deleted. You can always check progress, and if they don't meet your expectations, they offer a 30...
Speaker A
Use the code Fern TV for 60% off. Click the link in the description or scan the QR code to get started.
Speaker A
The spiked chains Palm drove into aren't the only ones. All around the depot, every access road is blocked by metal chains about 10 m long. If a police car drove over one of these chains, its tires would instantly be sliced open.
Speaker A
The robbery has been in progress for more than 15 minutes now. The helicopter is still circling above, meaning the robbers are still inside.
Speaker A
Police request aerial support from the military, but the armed forces can't provide any aircraft. Instead, police helicopters are ordered in. We don't know exactly how, but Inspector Palm eventually gets close to the depot. He sets up a roadblock a few hundred meters
Speaker A
away from the building. When Palm and his colleagues ask whether they're allowed to fire at the helicopter, the answer is a strict no. It's too dangerous. Instead, they're ordered to wait for the national task force. Palm is frustrated. All he can do is stand
Speaker A
there and wait. Luckily, a police helicopter must already be on its way. Or is it?
Speaker A
At 5:30 in the morning, police officers in Mittinga receive an alert. Robbery ongoing. A helicopter is involved. Air support required. Two officers raced toward the hanger. Their helicopter was returned just hours earlier. They'll have it ready in 10 minutes and be over
Speaker A
Vesterg 15 minutes after the alarm. But at the entrance, they stop. Is that a bomb? There's no way they can reach the helicopter. And even if they could, could they really risk taking off in a fuel filled helicopter next to
Speaker A
explosives? The two officers have only one option. Call in the bomb squad and wait at a safe distance. So, the White Bell 206 keeps circling above the cash depot unbothered. The security team watches as the intruders reappear in the courtyard
Speaker A
and make their way toward the roof carrying at least seven bags. They hoist them up. The three men climb the ladders. One hesitates for a moment as if he wants to go back in to get more of the money. Then they jump into the
Speaker A
helicopter, bags in hand. And just 30 minutes after hitting the cash depot, they disappear into the morning sky.
Speaker A
When the SWAT team enters the building, the robbers are long gone. Finally, the airlocked door in the cash depot opens.
Speaker A
The team leader, Yenni, and her colleagues are safe. At the police hanger in Mittinga, the bomb squad is in full swing. They use a water cannon to neutralize the bombs, but there are no explosions and no smoke. As the special
Speaker A
unit approaches, they find two very wet plastic boxes with lights attached. They fell for dummies.
Speaker A
Meanwhile, about a kilometer away, firefighters are putting out a small roadside fire at a bus stop. In the ashes, they find remains of a mask, gloves, a hatchet, a canister, and a lighter.
Speaker A
Around 6:00 a.m., people in nearby towns spot an object in the sky. A small white helicopter flying unusually low and slow over the forests. Not a single light is on. The robbers land in a forested park.
Speaker A
They take everything with them, leaving only a GPS device and a few cable ties behind. Investigators find the helicopter about 2 hours later. They learn it was stolen from a flight school about 70 km northeast of Stockholm just
Speaker A
after 4:00 a.m. A manhunt is underway this morning. As the country wakes up, the heist dominates the news. A reward of about $900,000 is offered for information on the robbers. The next day, the Swedish police still have no suspects,
Speaker A
despite the fact that they knew about the planned helicopter heist long before it happened.
Speaker A
A month before the heist, Swedish police receive a warning from Serbia's intelligence service. A crew of international thieves is planning to strike. Serbian police even share specifics. A helicopter is to be used.
Speaker A
Three robbers will carry out the job, backed by a group of around 20 people.
Speaker A
The chopper will land on the roof of a multi-story building. The crew will blast their way inside and in under 5 minutes grab the equivalent of roughly $13 million. The whole thing will go down by September 16 at the latest. If
Speaker A
not, the plan will be called off. The Swedish police put security measures in place. The public prosecutor authorizes phone surveillance of two suspects. As a precaution, police helicopters are moved from Ita to a safe location. For the planned break-in, the
Speaker A
police identify the most likely target, the Panaxia cash depot in Brumma in western Stockholm. The second most likely target, the GeForest depot in Vaspera.
Speaker A
For 4 weeks, authorities remain on high alert, reinforcing their task forces during the nights around September 16.
Speaker A
But then nothing happens in Brma or in Vest Berga. So the police end the special operation and the police helicopters move back to Matinga.
Speaker A
That's not the only vulnerability the robbers exploit. In the early 2000s, Sweden sees a string of robberies. The companies hit hardest are the ones that run cash depots. They're looking for help, including from the government. As early as 2005, a security company urged
Speaker A
the government to place all cash depots in similar facilities under state protection. A formal review followed and ran for 3 years, but the Ministry of Defense took no action. Because the authorities never classified these facilities as protected sites, virtually
Speaker A
anyone can access the building's blueprints. Floor plans of the roofs and facades, staircases and windows, everything neatly documented level by level. A Swedish news outlet later asked G4S whether the company had attempted to make the Vasperga building plans
Speaker A
confidential. G4S didn't respond, but by then it didn't matter. The money was gone, and so were the thieves. But they didn't vanish without a trace.
Speaker A
In fact, they left quite a bit behind. The burned remains at the bus stop in Mittinga, for example. the cable ties used to secure the ladders to the helicopter, the sledgehammer that smashed the glass roof, including blood stains. Because the heist was so
Speaker A
meticulously planned, police believe the masterminds must have had military training. In all of Sweden, only a small circle of people could be capable of pulling off a coup like this. Thanks to the warning from Serbia, the Swedish police started surveilling this circle
Speaker A
in time. Now they're sitting on a mountain of data. Calls, texts, pages upon pages of logs. One of the people under surveillance is a man called Goyan Buyovich, a 38-year-old Swede with parents from Montenegro. Until recently, he worked as a construction contractor.
Speaker A
According to Serbian wiretaps, he was recently in contact with a childhood friend, Milan Zo, who made a career in a completely different field, the Stockholm Mafia. Zavo has since relocated to Serbia's capital, Belgrade.
Speaker A
In 2009, Buoyovich traveled to Belgrade multiple times to meet Zavo. According to the wire tab, Buoyovich handed over large sums of money during these visits.
Speaker A
Swedish police realized that Boyovich is asking Zavo for help. At the end of August, the two speak on the phone. You know what? I called a school here and asked how much it cost to learn it.
Speaker A
€15,000. Boy wants to learn to fly a helicopter. Zavo shuts the idea down. Pilot training would take way too long. So Buyovich starts looking into another solution.
Speaker A
It's September 2, 3 weeks before the heist. Boyovich is in his car driving toward Keepsolman, a small island in Stockholm. It has a museum right on the waterfront. Boy is here to meet these two men. They've been waiting for him.
Speaker A
He walks up to them and sits down between them. Just a few meters away, a woman walks her dog. Her real job is to observe Goran Boy. She can't hear exactly what the men are saying. She can only keep an eye on them. The three chat
Speaker A
for about 5 minutes with Boyovich doing most of the talking. Then handshakes. One man walks with Boyovich to his car while the other gets into a pujo and drives off.
Speaker A
On September 28, 5 days after the heist, the police and a Swedish court announced that six suspects have been arrested.
Speaker A
One of the suspects is Goran Buyovich. Searching his apartment, investigators found a bag containing about 118,500 croner, roughly $15,000 at the time.
Speaker A
He's believed to have put the team together. Another man is arrested at Orlando airport just before he can escape to the Canary Islands. The press nicknames him Flick, which means escape in Swedish. His real name is Alexander Ericson. He's a TV producer who runs in
Speaker A
high society circles with Swedish celebrities. He's even rumored to be in contact with the prime minister. Between October and December, police arrest seven more men accused of helping plan or taking part in the heist. One of them is believed to have planted the fake
Speaker A
bombs. His DNA is found in the remains of the gloves and the lighter. In January, investigators identified the man who carried the submachine gun. The police already know him. His name is Zadakadum, and this was his second armed
Speaker A
robbery. Back in 2000, he and a gang stole invaluable art from the Swedish National Museum. He was caught and served two years in prison. Now he's been caught again. In July 2010, the public prosecutor presses charges. While the 10 arrests are seen as a major
Speaker A
success for the investigation, authorities believe there must have been more people involved behind the scenes.
Speaker A
For over 10 months, the police gather evidence and interview witnesses. 50 investigators work the case full-time.
Speaker A
By now they have a clear picture of how much the robbers managed to steal.
Speaker A
Almost 40 million croner, about $5 million at the time. That's how they managed to get away by helicopter, not taking too much. Just under a year after the robbery, the 10 men stand trial.
Speaker A
Five of them are accused of being directly involved in the heist. The other five face charges of aiding and abetting. The public prosecutor is confident there's enough evidence to convict all of them. But the men deny the charges. Take Alexander Ericson, the
Speaker A
TV producer. He's accused of flying the helicopter on the night of the heist. No way, he insists. His DNA in the stolen helicopter. That's easily explained, he says. After all, the chopper was stolen from the flight school he's been a
Speaker A
member of for 15 years. The undercover officer at the museum clearly identifies him as the man in the suit at the meeting with Boyovich. Ericson admits he was at the meeting. And yes, he talked to Boyovich, but about wind power since
Speaker A
Boyovich works in construction. He claims to have an alibi, too. On the night of the heist, he was involved in a car accident. But there's a problem. An hour after the supposed accident, he's spotted at a local McDonald's about a
Speaker A
30inut walk from where the helicopter was later found. Surveillance footage shows Erikson calmly ordering breakfast just before 7:00 a.m. How did he get from a car crash in central Stockholm to a McDonald's in the suburbs? The prosecution is convinced that two of the
Speaker A
other defendants staged the crash to give him an alibi. Surprisingly, one of them, Zadakatum, admits his involvement.
Speaker A
Investigators found his blood on multiple pieces of evidence. The other defendants continue to deny any involvement in the heist, but after just 18 days of trial, seven of the 10 defendants are convicted. Alexander Ericson and Zadakadum are each sentenced
Speaker A
to 7 years in prison for armed robbery. The other five defendants are found guilty of aiding, abetting, and protecting criminals, including Goran Buoyovich, who also goes to prison.
Speaker A
Before the trial, they were seen as daring, clever crooks. None of them were elite soldiers in the Balkan Wars, as was speculated, but the trial stripped them of their mystique. They turned out to be nothing more than a ragtag group
Speaker A
of violent criminals. After the heist, heated debate broke out in Sweden over how such attacks could be prevented in the future. trade unions spoke out. Handling cash creates a dangerous work environment for employees. So for their protection, maybe they should just get rid of it.
Speaker A
According to a report from the banking union, one in four retail workers had already been a victim of a robbery, some multiple times. And according to an anti-cash lobby group, two out of every three Swedish croner in circulation was
Speaker A
actually unreported money. The helicopter heist in Vaspera contributed to a shift in thinking. Over time, cash gradually disappeared from daily life.
Speaker A
Sweden was the first country in Europe to print paper money back in 1661. About 350 years later, it was one of the first to start abandoning it. The number of robberies in Sweden dropped dramatically. In 2008, there were over a
Speaker A
100. By 2016, it was down to just two. Today, many shops only accept cashless payment. theft happens online. Now, in 2025, the Swedish Central Bank reported that Sweden and Norway had the least cash in circulation relative to their
Speaker A
economies of any countries in the world. But some cash is still around and someone somewhere has quite a lot of it because the money from the Vestga heist has never recovered.
Topics:Vesta heistSweden bank robberyhelicopter robberyG4S security2009 bank heistcash depot robberypolice responsebanknotes theftsecurity camera clueEastern Europe investigation
