The G Manifesto

(This is the first “Guest” G Manifesto. By The Dinnertime Bandit)

Dear G Manifesto,

“He has the agility of a cat, the cunning of a spy and the eye of a jeweler.”

“He can break into your house while you’re eating dinner and be gone with all your valuables before dessert.”

Following his arrest in Antwerp, Belgium on 14th December 2006 by Belgian Federal Police, I realized just how much of a G, Alan really is. His criminal career has come to a sudden and abrupt end, and he faces the rest of his life in jail due to Parole Violations and the crimes he is also wanted for. He may also end up serving time in Belgium itself.

Alan William Golder, born on 9th August 1955, is quite possibly America’s most talented jewel thief of all time. His story far surpasses that of the “Dinnerset Gang”, as he worked alone.

The son of a career criminal who was caught several times, and a mother who worked part-time as a waitress, living in a dilapidated wooden shack in Queens, Alan Golder knew he came from the wrong side of an American society that places so much emphasis on material wealth and status.

Alan turned to crime because he couldn’t legally have what other kids had. His first theft a matchbox toy car from Woolworths aged 6 years old. By the age of 10 he had graduated to stealing bikes. At 16, he dropped out of high school to pursue crime full-time, first hitting small businesses and then home burglaries for baubles by Faberge, and jewelry from Harry Winston and David Webb. By 21, Golder was stealing millions in jewels, funneling them onto the black market through a New York City jewelry store which had Genovese crime family fences. His equipment consisted of a ski mask, large flashlight and a long screwdriver. He never carried a gun, but always wore tan Isotoner gloves, which appeared less suspicious than black ones.

Alan used Architectural Digest and Unique Homes to scope out suitable targets, as well as the advice of the Genovese Crime Family, who knew only too well the route that rich jewelry kept to.

In the late ’70s Mr. Golder stole from the houses of talk-show host Johnny Carson, country singer Glen Campbell, author and screenwriter Irving Wallace and Jackie O’s mother.

According to his own story Golder reached the zenith of his criminal career in the late 1970s, after coming to the attention of mob figures while regularly disposing of high-quality hot gems at a Manhattan jewelry store that was a front for the Genovese organized crime family. The store’s two owners and a Genovese associate named “Figgy” (Anthony Ficarotta), saw the young thief’s potential and groomed him for bigger and better heists. They taught him to look for anything bearing such designer names as David Webb, Carl Faberge, Harry Winston and Tiffany, and to leave less-valuable baubles behind.

Golder’s overseers were members of a jewelry fencing operation so sophisticated that a diamond necklace stolen in the United States one week would be for sale on the European black market the next. The FBI’s code name for it’s investigation of the organization was “Gold Ring.”

Golder’s mob handlers instructed him on how the affluent usually took their most precious gems with them as they migrated seasonally, and had him follow victims to such places as the Hamptons, N.Y., Newport, R.I., and Nantucket Island, Mass., in the summer, Houston and Bel Air in the fall, and Palm Beach, Fla., in the winter. Despite being a star performer, Golder was pressured into scoring even bigger and was told by his overseers to go for the bigger “stones” – the diamond, rubies and emerald rings that some wealthy women wore all the time, even to bed.

Between 1976 and 1980, the FBI estimated that Golder had stolen at least $25 million worth of gold and precious gems from the homes of some of the richest and most famous people in America.

He stripped a 6-carat pear-shaped diamond ring right off the finger of Mrs. Glen Campbell as she stood screaming in the dining room of her hilltop mansion.

A similar scene was repeated with oil baroness Marjorie Phillips, from whom Golder grabbed a 21-carat diamond, and from Johnny Carson’s first ex-wife, Joanna, whom he forced to open a safe containing $250,000 in jewelry.

Things changed for Golder on Dec. 4, 1978, when multimillionaire developer Lawrence Lever walked into the master bedroom of his Old Brookville, New York mansion and found two ski-masked men ransacking it. As he tried to reach a shotgun hidden in the closet, the intruders drew guns and one shot him in the chest. Golder, under the pressure of the mob,was trying to “train” two young thai men in the art of his style of crime. One of the Thai men came armed. A confrontation in the estate ensued and Lawrence Lever ended up losing his life. Golder was sentence to 15 years to life, in exchange for a deal where he informed on 24 mob figures, most in New York City, the rest spread all over America.

Golder was paroled from prison in June 1996, after serving the minimum amount of time on a 15-years-to-life sentence for the 1978 murder of Long Island real estate developer Lawrence Lever. In that incident, he is not believed to have been the triggerman. It is believed that “Boonlert Thanarajakools” of Thailand was the triggerman. He is thought to be in Thailand since 1978.

His Unsolved Mysteries page (http://www.unsolved.com/1104-Golder.html) states “Since his parole in 1996, authorities estimate he has stolen $5 million in gems from estates in Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In November 1997, Golder disappeared from his Queens, New York apartment and went on the run. He is known to have contacts in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Texas and Florida. Golder is in great physical shape and is known to frequent gyms, tanning salons, fine restaurants and nightclubs.”

Date: October 1997.

Location: New York City, NY.

The Score: Police are investigating whether Golder may have been responsible for the heist of $500,000 in jewelry from the home of the consul general of Thailand as she was entertaining 15 dinner guests in New York City.

Date : October 2nd 1997.

Location: Scarsdale, NY.

The Score: Alan Golder is suspected of stealing $50,000 worth of jewelry from a house in Scarsdale, NY, as 30 people celebrated the Jewish New Year, Rosh HaShana, downstairs.

Date: January 10th-11th 1998.

Location: Preston Hollow, suburb of Dallas, Texas.

The Score: Alan William Golder is suspected in the theft of least 100 pieces of jewelry valued at about $1 million, from a “secured area” in the bathroom of the home of billlionaire and republican fundraiser, Harold Simmons.

On Dec. 14, police in Belgium collared Golder, 51, in Antwerp, the diamond capital of the world. He is not currently charged with any crime yet. He has been held for over 6 months now, and is not allowed phone or mail contact. It is not known if he is allowed a court-appointed lawyer. The US wants his extradition as soon as possible, but the Belgian authorities are holding things up.

References: http://www.amw.com/fugitives/brief.cfm?id=24269
http://parole.state.ny.us/mostwanteddet.asp?id=213
http://www.nysmostwanted.com/9.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Golder
http://wcbstv.com/seenon/local_story_353201034.html

If you wish to refer to my site www.dinnertimebandit.info or http://dinnertimebandit.blogspot.com please feel free to do so.

You may email me on dinnertimebandit@gmail.com

Please understand this is a very basic summary of Alan Golder’s life and crimes. I have tried to demonstrate why it’s an interesting case for your site to feature, and I believe the public would like to hear the story.

Kind Regards

DTB

Big Daddy Kane, Smooth Operator (G Manifesto Certified Track)