Ioanid Gang
Encyclopedia
The Ioanid Gang was a group in Communist Romania
named after two of its members, Alexandru and Paul Ioanid. On July 28, 1959, they allegedly carried out the most famous bank robbery
ever to have occurred inside a Communist state
.
intellectuals and Romanian Communist Party
cadres (Alexandru Ioanid, Paul Ioanid, Igor Sevianu, Monica Sevianu, Saşa Muşat and Haralambie Obedeanu) were alleged to have stolen 1,600,000 Romanian lei
(about 250,000 United States dollar
s in 1959) from an armored car
of the National Bank of Romania in 1959.
The case was investigated by the Securitate
(the Communist secret police
), and the supposed perpetrators were arrested within two months. They were rounded up in night-time raids, tried behind closed doors, and all but one sentenced to death
. The executions, also kept under secrecy (including for family members of the victims), were carried out in 1960.
Monica Sevianu, the only woman involved, had her sentence commuted to life imprisonment
because she was a mother; in 1964, she was released through an amnesty
for political crimes, and returned to Israel
in 1970 (she had already made Aliyah
once, in the 1940s).
organizations that would send Romanian Jews to Israel, the stolen sum was in lei, which at the time could not be exchanged for hard currency
anywhere in the world.
Given that Communist Romania
was a police state
, and unprecedented measures of strict control and surveillance were supposed to have been enforced in all areas of society (phone calls were routinely monitored, correspondence was intercepted, and secret police informant
s were common) a plan such as the one allegedly designed by the group would have been exceedingly difficult to carry out. It is also highly unlikely that the members of the "Ioanid Gang" could have been unaware of these facts, especially as one of them, Alexandru Ioanid, was a colonel in the Securitate and, according to Victor Frunză, related through marriage to the Securitate chief Alexandru Drăghici. In fact, during the months preceding July 1959 (the date of the alleged heist), at least one of the members, Obedeanu, was aware of being followed and of being constantly watched (through binoculars) by the Securitate from a building across the street from his apartment.
In the aftermath of July 28, the group was said to have engaged in reckless spending on luxuries, as depicted in the original reconstruction movie. It is, however, highly unlikely that a person living in Romania at the time could have imagined being able to get away with such behavior unnoticed by the surveillance apparatus; moreover, in Obedeanu's case for example, the filming crew resorted to furnishing props (carpets, furniture and curtains) to his apartment, in order to show how he had spent the money. Obedeanu never really changed his spending habits, unlike apparently (according to Irene Lusztig) Sevianu, leading some to believe that, in trying to stage the event, authorities may have offered Sevianu money based on his more immediate needs (unlike the others, Sevianu was unemployed). It has also been indicated that Obedeanu's wife, arrested along with the group members, was interrogated only about the content of conversations among group members, and found out about bank robbery accusations only upon her release from prison after a couple of months.
All these aspects, together with the numerous cases of sentences based on false accusations, have led some (including relatives of the alleged robbers) to doubt that any robbery actually took place or that those charged with the crime committed it. One conjecture is that the case was manufactured by the government in an attempt to justify a purge in the Securitate ranks (by accusing officers of incompetence in solving the case) as well as to remove most remaining Jews from leading positions inside the government and Communist Party
. Yet another contention is that the executions were staged, so that the five men would have their records erased and become undercover agents abroad. Since most evidence has been filtered by the Securitate, the truth is extremely hard to discern (especially since Securitate files are unlikely to contain any self-incriminating notes of the staging of the heist, and resume themselves to follow official guidelines).
tones, members may have been blackmail
ed (threatened with harm against their families and themselves), and promised some reprieve (or even freedom to leave the country with their families) if they went along with the staging of the robbery to serve several government and personal purposes.
In this event, the government failed to uphold its end of the bargain. As a parallel, in what was a highly unusual move for those times when nobody was allowed to leave Romania, another Jewish Securitate officer, incidentally described as "friend" of the Ioanid group, was permitted to leave the country with his family and go to Brazil
shortly after the alleged incident; this has led some to believe that he may have been the agent through whom the government communicated its promises and made them credible.
, starring Harry Lloyd
, Vera Farmiga
, Mark Strong
and Joe Armstrong
, is based on the events.
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
named after two of its members, Alexandru and Paul Ioanid. On July 28, 1959, they allegedly carried out the most famous bank robbery
Bank robbery
Bank robbery is the crime of stealing from a bank during opening hours. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting Program, robbery is "the taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person or persons by force or threat of...
ever to have occurred inside a Communist state
Communist state
A communist state is a state with a form of government characterized by single-party rule or dominant-party rule of a communist party and a professed allegiance to a Leninist or Marxist-Leninist communist ideology as the guiding principle of the state...
.
Timeline
An armed group of six Jewish RomanianHistory of the Jews in Romania
The history of Jews in Romania concerns the Jews of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is nowadays Romanian territory....
intellectuals and Romanian Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
cadres (Alexandru Ioanid, Paul Ioanid, Igor Sevianu, Monica Sevianu, Saşa Muşat and Haralambie Obedeanu) were alleged to have stolen 1,600,000 Romanian lei
Romanian leu
The leu is the currency of Romania. It is subdivided into 100 bani . The name of the currency means "lion". On 1 July 2005, Romania underwent a currency reform, switching from the previous leu to a new leu . 1 RON is equal to 10,000 ROL...
(about 250,000 United States dollar
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
s in 1959) from an armored car
Armored car (valuables)
A common meaning of armored car is as an armored van or truck, used in transporting valuables, such as large quantities of money . The armored car is a multifunctional vehicle designed to protect and ensure the well being of the transported individuals and/or contents...
of the National Bank of Romania in 1959.
The case was investigated by the Securitate
Securitate
The Securitate was the secret police agency of Communist Romania. Previously, the Romanian secret police was called Siguranţa Statului. Founded on August 30, 1948, with help from the Soviet NKVD, the Securitate was abolished in December 1989, shortly after President Nicolae Ceaușescu was...
(the Communist secret police
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....
), and the supposed perpetrators were arrested within two months. They were rounded up in night-time raids, tried behind closed doors, and all but one sentenced to death
Death Sentence
Death Sentence is a short story by the American science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1943 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov.-Plot summary:...
. The executions, also kept under secrecy (including for family members of the victims), were carried out in 1960.
Monica Sevianu, the only woman involved, had her sentence commuted to life imprisonment
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
because she was a mother; in 1964, she was released through an amnesty
Amnesty
Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...
for political crimes, and returned to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
in 1970 (she had already made Aliyah
Aliyah
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...
once, in the 1940s).
1960 propaganda film
In 1960, the government issued a propaganda film, Reconstituirea, for Communist Party members, which reconstructed the way in which the heist had allegedly been planned and carried out. Members of the Ioanid Gang acted out their own roles, possibly having been told that their death sentences would be commuted in return.Dilemmas
There were several unusual things about the story in its most common version. Beyond accusations based on various ideological guidelines, no reasons for the alleged robbery, or for the Ioanid group to have perpetrated it, were ever given. Although the persons on trial were accused of intending to donate the money to ZionistZionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
organizations that would send Romanian Jews to Israel, the stolen sum was in lei, which at the time could not be exchanged for hard currency
Hard currency
Hard currency , in economics, refers to a globally traded currency that is expected to serve as a reliable and stable store of value...
anywhere in the world.
Given that Communist Romania
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
was a police state
Police state
A police state is one in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic and political life of the population...
, and unprecedented measures of strict control and surveillance were supposed to have been enforced in all areas of society (phone calls were routinely monitored, correspondence was intercepted, and secret police informant
Informant
An informant is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law enforcement world, where they are officially known as confidential or criminal informants , and can often refer pejoratively to the supply of information...
s were common) a plan such as the one allegedly designed by the group would have been exceedingly difficult to carry out. It is also highly unlikely that the members of the "Ioanid Gang" could have been unaware of these facts, especially as one of them, Alexandru Ioanid, was a colonel in the Securitate and, according to Victor Frunză, related through marriage to the Securitate chief Alexandru Drăghici. In fact, during the months preceding July 1959 (the date of the alleged heist), at least one of the members, Obedeanu, was aware of being followed and of being constantly watched (through binoculars) by the Securitate from a building across the street from his apartment.
In the aftermath of July 28, the group was said to have engaged in reckless spending on luxuries, as depicted in the original reconstruction movie. It is, however, highly unlikely that a person living in Romania at the time could have imagined being able to get away with such behavior unnoticed by the surveillance apparatus; moreover, in Obedeanu's case for example, the filming crew resorted to furnishing props (carpets, furniture and curtains) to his apartment, in order to show how he had spent the money. Obedeanu never really changed his spending habits, unlike apparently (according to Irene Lusztig) Sevianu, leading some to believe that, in trying to stage the event, authorities may have offered Sevianu money based on his more immediate needs (unlike the others, Sevianu was unemployed). It has also been indicated that Obedeanu's wife, arrested along with the group members, was interrogated only about the content of conversations among group members, and found out about bank robbery accusations only upon her release from prison after a couple of months.
All these aspects, together with the numerous cases of sentences based on false accusations, have led some (including relatives of the alleged robbers) to doubt that any robbery actually took place or that those charged with the crime committed it. One conjecture is that the case was manufactured by the government in an attempt to justify a purge in the Securitate ranks (by accusing officers of incompetence in solving the case) as well as to remove most remaining Jews from leading positions inside the government and Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
. Yet another contention is that the executions were staged, so that the five men would have their records erased and become undercover agents abroad. Since most evidence has been filtered by the Securitate, the truth is extremely hard to discern (especially since Securitate files are unlikely to contain any self-incriminating notes of the staging of the heist, and resume themselves to follow official guidelines).
Blackmail scenario
Based on what is known about the group members (journalists, a physicist, a history professor, and a Securitate colonel, all fully understanding the Romanian situation) and about the political climate at the time, as well as on recollections of some family members, another scenario also seems likely. Following prolonged Securitate surveillance of the group, which resulted in the accumulation of evidence about conversations with dissidentDissident
A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. When dissidents unite for a common cause they often effect a dissident movement....
tones, members may have been blackmail
Blackmail
In common usage, blackmail is a crime involving threats to reveal substantially true or false information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a demand is met. It may be defined as coercion involving threats of physical harm, threat of criminal prosecution, or threats...
ed (threatened with harm against their families and themselves), and promised some reprieve (or even freedom to leave the country with their families) if they went along with the staging of the robbery to serve several government and personal purposes.
In this event, the government failed to uphold its end of the bargain. As a parallel, in what was a highly unusual move for those times when nobody was allowed to leave Romania, another Jewish Securitate officer, incidentally described as "friend" of the Ioanid group, was permitted to leave the country with his family and go to Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
shortly after the alleged incident; this has led some to believe that he may have been the agent through whom the government communicated its promises and made them credible.
In culture
Apart from the original film, there have been several other movies and documentaries, including Reconstruction (2002) by Irene Lusztig and The Great Communist Robbery (2004) by Alexandru Solomon. The forthcoming film Closer to the Moon by Nae CaranfilNae Caranfil
Nae Caranfil is a Romanian film director and screenwriter.-Career:Nae Caranfil is the son of important Romanian film historian and critic Tudor Caranfil...
, starring Harry Lloyd
Harry Lloyd
Harry Lloyd is an English actor. He played Will Scarlet in the first two seasons of the BBC drama Robin Hood which began in 2006...
, Vera Farmiga
Vera Farmiga
Vera Ann Farmiga is an American actress and director. Farmiga made her film debut in the 1998 drama thriller Return to Paradise. This was followed by supporting roles in the 2000 romantic film Autumn in New York and the 2001 television series UC: Undercover...
, Mark Strong
Mark Strong
Mark Strong is an English actor, with a body of work in both films and television. He has performed in films as varied as Body of Lies, Syriana, The Young Victoria, Sherlock Holmes, RocknRolla, Stardust, and Kick-Ass...
and Joe Armstrong
Joe Armstrong (actor)
Joe Armstrong is an English actor. He played Allan A Dale in the BBC series Robin Hood. He plays Hotspur in the forthcoming BBC production of Henry IV, Part 1 and he will appear in the film Closer to the Moon by Nae Caranfil...
, is based on the events.
Sources
Doriana Galor, "Arena: Marele jaf din 1959 la Banca Naţională" ("Arena: The Great 1959 National Bank Robbery"), at the BBC Romanian section site- Victor Frunză, Istoria stalinismului în România ("The History of Stalinism in Romania"), HumanitasHumanitas publishing houseHumanitas is an independent Romanian publishing house, founded on February 1, 1990 in Bucharest by the philosopher Gabriel Liiceanu...
, Bucharest, 1990