Stolen Hearts: Listen now: Infamous International: The Pink Panthers Story

Hey, listeners.

I want to introduce you to Infamous International, the Pink Panthers story, a new limited true

crime podcast series on Exactly Right, the podcast network behind my favorite murder.

Infamous International, the Pink Panthers story is the true story of the world's most

infamous jewel thieves.

They planned and executed a series of highly theatrical smash and grab heists in cities

like Dubai, London, and Monaco.

You'll hear from journalists, experts, and eyewitnesses to get the spine chilling behind

the scene story of the shadowy crime syndicate that made global headlines, caught the attention

of Interpol and spawned an international manhunt.

Catching a Pink Panther and keeping them in prison are two different challenges, and both

of them prove very difficult.

I'm about to play a clip from episode one called Heist at the Wafi Mall, in which we

are introduced to three of the Pink Panthers and hear how they managed to get away with

millions of dollars in high-end jewelry in under a minute.

While you're listening, if you like what you hear, follow Infamous International, the

Pink Panther story on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to Infamous International early and add free on Wondery Plus.

Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery App today.

This is Exactly Right.

So the Panthers decide to strike just before the Wafi Mall is set to close for the night.

Fewer people in the mall, fewer people in harm's way.

And after weeks of careful planning and preparation, the Panthers are ready.

As the day of the robbery approaches, there is one last piece of the plan to be completed.

The getaway cars.

And the Pink Panthers have something quite specific in mind.

Like the fancy apartment and Bojana's elegant clothes, the Panthers pay close attention

to image.

It's partly camouflage, but it's also theater.

They steal a black Audi S8, a luxury sedan worth $100,000 plus, to blend in here you

need a high-end car.

But they can only find one in Dubai and their plan calls for two cars.

So they drive 90 minutes to Abu Dhabi to steal a second S8.

This is not a practical decision, they're planning to put on a show.

So on the evening of the heist, as the mall is preparing to close for the night, the black

Audi backs up to the entrance doors.

Soon, the white car pulls up directly in front of it.

I ask Ilan to take me through the events in detail.

So the first thing they do is they line up their cars in front of the mall, so their

nose to nose, and Bojana's car, she's facing backwards, and then Milan's car is in the

opposite way.

He's facing the mall, the entrance to the mall, and then they rev their engines and boom,

they take off exactly at the same time.

Footage from the mall's security cameras captures the scene.

The black Audi, careening backward through the glass entrance doors, across the ornate

marble floor of the mall.

Justice reporter Yelena Zoric said, there are cameras everywhere, and so we can see this

scene unfold from multiple angles.

It's quite dramatic.

Bojana Mitich is behind the wheel of the black Audi.

She speeds backward down the mall corridor, right up to the jewelry store.

They slam through the glass entrance of the mall.

Then they head toward that graph store, that jewelry store, which is only a few hundred

feet from the entrance.

They want a lot of extra weight in the back, so they load up the trunks of the cars with

cement blocks.

It makes the cars like battering rams, it weaponizes the car.

But tell me, why is Bojana going in reverse?

Because when you go in reverse, you don't set off the airbags when you crash through

the glass doors.

Bojana smashes into the store entrance, and the surrounding wall collapses.

Milani Pujja is driving the white Audi.

He and Bojana stay in their cars, engines running while their fellow panthers run in.

Overhead security footage shows black clad panthers, their faces masked, hammers in

hand.

At this point, a shopper at the mall takes out his blackberry and begins filming.

So it's not high definition, it's grainy, but you can see exactly what happened.

If you look closely, the panthers, they're coming out of the car, they're waving pistols

around.

The pistols are actually fake.

It's another insurance policy.

Nobody's going to get trigger-happy, no collateral damage.

Cameras inside the graph boutique show two salesmen in suits running to the back of the

store.

Behind them, a pink panther moves calmly to the display cases.

One by one, he smashes the glass, reaches in, and tosses the merchandise into a bag.

That's the sound of the security alarms going off.

And that car honk is the signal, from Milani and Bojana to the others inside graph that

20 seconds have passed.

It's time to go.

Inside graph, show the pink panthers file out one by one.

You just heard a clip from Infamous International, the pink panther story on exactly right.

To hear the rest of this episode and all other episodes, head over to the Infamous International

feed and follow the show wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to Infamous International, the pink panther story early and add free

on Wondery Plus.

Get started with your free trial at Wondery.com slash plus.

Don't miss new episodes every Thursday.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.