The Jewel Thief’s Gerald Blanchard Faced 160 Years In Prison For His Heists

The “unbelievable true story” told in Hulu’s The Jewel Thief could easily double as the plot of a James Bond movie. In June 1998, Gerald Blanchard claims he parachuted onto the roof of an Austrian palace, entered through a window he unlocked while visiting during the day, stole a 19th-century crown jewel, and left a gift shop replica in its place. The true-crime doc provides a first-hand account of the heist from Blanchard himself, as well as the Canadian detectives who played a global cat-and-mouse game. Despite a “seemingly perfect crime,” the criminal mastermind — whom investigators dubbed one of the “most creative” in modern history — eventually slipped up, leading to his ultimate downfall.

Having once belonged to Empress Elisabeth “Sisi” of Austria, the diamond-and-pearl-encrusted pin — the Koechert Diamond Pearl, aka the Sisi Star — was on display for a special exhibit at Vienna’s Schönbrunn Palace at the time of the theft. Blanchard, who began shoplifting while growing up in Omaha, Nebraska, in the 1980s as a means of thrill-seeking, had no special reason for choosing the famed star, other than he “just thought it was pretty” and one of the easier items to access. “My original plan was to take a crown,” Blanchard recently explained to Rolling Stone. “I thought the museum would know that the diamond was taken right away. Like three weeks later, I saw on Sky News that they found out that the diamond had been switched, and I had it hidden in my scuba gear.”

As Blanchard put it in the Hulu doc, he “could have stopped there,” but referred to thrill-seeking as an “addiction.” After relocating to his native Canada, he robbed a new Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce branch in Winnipeg, siphoning half a million dollars from its ATMs, in 2004. But he made one mistake: An employee at the Wal-Mart next door noticed a suspicious van outside the bank, and police found Blanchard’s name on the rental agreement. After placing him on wiretap, they learned of more global bank heists, and after intercepting a call Blanchard received while crawling through the ceiling into the ATM room of a Scotiabank in British Columbia, Canadian authorities eventually arrested him in January 2007.

Blanchard pleaded guilty to 16 charges and cooperated with authorities so his accomplices could get more lenient sentences, he reportedly explained in a court filing, underlining that he had not committed a violent crime and was “known internationally for orchestrating never-seen-before high-tech crimes.” About five months after Blanchard’s arrest, Winnipeg police found the Sisi Star tucked inside a wall of Blanchard’s grandmother’s home, while raiding the house for stolen cash and goods.

“I was looking at 160 years for all my charges,” he added in his Rolling Stone interview. “I forfeited all my assets, all my money, gave the [Sisi Star] back, and ended up with eight years. I was out after 18 months.” (Blanchard was formally released from a British Columbia prison in April 2012, according to Parole Board of Canada documents obtained by CBC News.)

His crimes didn’t stop there — though his later activity didn’t quite have the same makings of a Hollywood heist blockbuster: Blanchard was arrested again in March 2017 for shoplifting gaming consoles from a Best Buy near Toronto and was later released on bail. At the time, Blanchard was reportedly 46 years old and using the alias Rick White, according to The Globe and Mail. The Canadian newspaper also reported that he had built a new life in Vancouver as a drone operator, aerial videographer, and advocate for owners of servals, an African cat species. At the time, Blanchard also worked on movie sets, bringing his exotic cats to global fashion shoots, luxury car shows, and beauty pageant galas.

Though Blanchard, now about 52, shared more of his story in Hulu’s The Jewel Thief, he’s keeping some heist details secret. “I want to leave it up to [people’s] imagination,” he told Rolling Stone. “It makes the story more interesting.” Adding that he remains confident in his bank-robbing skills today, Blanchard insisted that his heisting days are behind him, though he can’t definitively say that he’s sworn off crime completely.

“It’s tempting, but my feeling is the police know my MO, so if I were to do anything, I would have to change it up,” he revealed, noting a lingering propensity for thrill-seeking. “I still have five or six different MOs I could easily do to off throw the banks. But I live this comfortable life now, and don’t need to worry about committing crimes. . . . [But] you can never say never. It’s a spur of the moment decision, [and] things are always there.”