Man on trial over 'heist of the century'

In this file photo taken on July 20, 1976 shows owners of safes gathering in front of the Societe Generale bank in Nice, southern France, days after the burglary of the bank's vault.- AFP

The suspected mastermind of France's "heist of the century" went on trial on Monday nearly half a century after robbers tunnelled through sewers to snatch the equivalent of 29 million euros ($36 million) from a bank vault.
The 1976 robbery at a Societe Generale branch in the southern city of Nice confounded the police for decades.
Only one person was ever charged with the crime, with most of the gang disappearing, and the loot - 46 million francs, about 29 million euros ($36 million) in today's money - was never found.
But in 2010, the case took an unexpected twist when a career criminal wrote a book in which he portrayed himself as the heist's mastermind. He used a pen name but investigators quickly concluded the writer was Jacques Cassandri, a key mafia figure in Marseille, where he is now standing trial.
He had assumed he was safe because the crime was too old to be prosecuted, but Cassandri is being charged with laundering the millions from the heist - a crime for which France has no statute of limitations.
Police found the manuscript on Cassandri's computer, and his children later confessed that their father had often bragged about the robbery.
He eventually admitted to orchestrating the intricately planned job that involved at least six people and 30 tanks of acetylene to fuel the welding torches used to cut into safes and safety deposit boxes. He said he got only the equivalent of about two million euros, which he quickly spent.
But an investigating magistrate was not convinced, saying Cassandri was broke in 1976 but now sits atop an empire that includes several businesses and real estate.
"This book is a novel, and a novel is not a piece of evidence," one of Cassandri's lawyers has argued.
But Cassandri and several of his relatives are facing a series of questions on his business dealings, with prosecutors also alleging social security fraud and a real estate scam in Corsica.

The loot, equivalent to $36m, was never found