In terms of meticulous planning and attention to detail, Japan’s greatest bank robbery could give Steven Soderbergh’s Danny Ocean and his band of fictional casino robbers a run for their money. The perpetrator – seemingly acting alone – took great pains to not only carry out the heist, but also ensure that follow-up investigations would be thwarted, and rewarded for his efforts with a cool ¥300 million (equivalent to $3.8 million in U.S.)

On this day, December 10, in 1968, using a little social engineering and a lot of chutzpah, a man disguised as a motorcycle police officer stole a car full of cash from Japan’s Nihon Shintaku Ginko bank.

The heist started with a series of threats against the bank and its manager – whether carried out by the robber or an unrelated case is unclear, but it did provide with the perfect ruse. The unmarked civilian car with four bank employees was stopped on the street by a policeman, who informed them their bank was just blown up, and that the bombers likely planted a device on the car as well. As the “policeman” got under the car to check for explosives, smoke and flames started coming out from the bottom (from the road flare he ignited). The employees ran for cover. The policeman got inside the car and drove away, never to be found.