Transcripts For WCAU Dateline NBC 20240622

And their sultry sidekicks. Shes a very beautiful, beautiful girl. Tonight, the latest on a dragnet more urgent than ever. Its more violent. And an unprecedented chance to go inside the gang itself. They told me would you like to participate in a Training Exercise. After 20 years of striking at will, are they finally about to be stopped . Im lester holt and this is dateline. Heres Keith Morrison on the trail of the pink panthers. Theres no place quite like the principality of monaco. Per capita quite possibly the richest and safest country on earth. Here giant private yachts all but overwhelm the ancient mediterranean harbor tucked into this tiny pocket carved from the south of france. Sun and money drenched immune apparently to the rest of the world, or so it once seemed to monacos former police chief, andre. Its always solo. Why. Why so it solo . A population that has no fear to call the police and report something thats not normal. Here around monacos casino scare, the eyepopping treasures of some of the world ast most exclusive jewelry shops is protected by a hovering army of security cameras. About 400 of those things trained on the glittering principality. Everywhere you look around here there are uniformed policemen. Theres a Police Substation right across the street from one of the most expensive jewelry shops. This is perhaps one of the best protected little square kilometers on the face of the globe. Safe secure a fortress. But then it happened. June 2007 a perfect day as spring gave way to summer. It was high noon. The surveillance cameras in the ciribelli jewelry shop 30 yards from the police station. And that man in the expensive suit wandering around the store, the saleswoman later spoke to a 60 minutes program. I have a customer who was sitting here and it was supposed to be a customer. So he asked me for watches. There was another guy ringing the doorbell and just put the gun on the face of the baby. A gun. The man motioned his intention to use it. The child shrank back in terror as the two men screamed in an unfamiliar language and loot the store. Just one minute and ten seconds. A minute and ten seconds . A minute and ten seconds, yeah. And they were not just gone from the jewelry shop. Monaco, remember is tiny, the city could fit into central park. In seconds youre out of the country. So we have one minute to catch them. And that was it. How much were those watches worth . Around 600,000 euros. That would make people sit up and take notice. And heres the thing. That video is just one of hundreds recorded all over the world. These are heists that play like some sort of twisted criminal movie franchise. But theyre all too real. Copenhagen denmark, a fancy hotel, an exclusive Little Jewelry shop just off the lobby. Security cameras showed a welldressed man. He entered, two other men rushed in behind him. The irs pulled a gun, the other smashed cases as the first kept watch at the door. Grabbing over a Million Dollars of merchandise along with them. Dubai, united arab emirates. A luxury mall in the middle of the day. Startled shoppers click on their camera phones as two audis crashed into a boutique. In under a minute two men grabbed 14 million worth of jewelry. On their way out, they got off a couple of shots and then they drove off. It all happened in broad daylight in front of surveillance cameras in the steelstrap secure capitals of the worlds wealthiest people. It would take police years to realize it but they were up against a whole new kind of gang. They are notorious, theyre dangerous, and they are persistent. So bold and mercenary that perhaps you could call them commercial terrorists. They can find people in every country in europe. Vicious and precise. The attack is so quick, people are so surprised. They slipped in and out of countries at lightning speed. They cross borders very easily. They overwhelm the defenses of some of the worlds top jewelers. They opened the door or i kill you. They toyed with police. They seemed to hunt their glittering prey at will. Its like a military operation. And yet for years no one realized that all these crimes were connected. It is not a hierarchical structure. And thats what makes them so effective. Tonight were on their trail. And it will lead us through the most bejeweled cities in the world, from new york to paris to geneva and others an International Manhunt for this daring elusive network of thieves. Well take you inside Law Enforcements battle their decades along investigation to figure out, first, who are these people, who are their diabolical masterminds and how can they be stopped . Well meet some of their seductive women, their secret weapons. She was very beautiful, beautiful girl. But for every job shed have to change her look. And well see what it may be like to be one of these young criminals in training. It is really like a movie . And, as well discover, maybe in some ways it is. But first, back to the beginning. We traced the gangs meteoric rise. How the heists got more and more daring and the spoils reached the stratosphere. When you talk about hitting a Jewelry Store, they get away with how much merchandise, how much money . Then a pattern detected. The surprising thing that thieves had in common. You are loved in so many different ways thats why youre wrapped in the comfort of pampers swaddlers with blanketlike softness and up to 12 hours of protection so all you feel is love. Wishing you love sleep and play. Pampers i know what youre thinking, but this is the improved i cant believe its not butter 100 taste, 0 artificial preservatives. Made with a blend of delicious oils, purified water, and just a pinch of salt. Two, please. I cant believe its not butter. 100 taste, 0 artificial preservatives. 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You are loved in so many ways thats why youre wrapped in the blanketlike softness and protection of pampers swaddlers so all you feel is love. Pampers the people were going to show you in action tonight are the members of the most wanted gang of jewel thieves the world has ever known. So brazen hightech surveillance cameras didnt deter them. And as we learn, so secretive that back in the beginning not a cop on the globe had a clue that there was even a gang let alone who they were. Where do the trails start . On dateline we began our own look into this notorious group in 2010, and our investigation led us first not to paris or monaco or dubai, but just down sixth avenue from Rockefeller Center to the diamond district of new york city. The year 1988. The crime apparently isolated. A Diamond Wholesalers vault was ransacked. Now fastforward five years. 1993. Basel, switzerland. The european jewelry and watch fair. Three diamonds valued over 3. 5 million vanished. 1994 around the globe in tokyo, an Upscale Department store, three watches worth thousands upon thousands of dollars. Months later honolulu. A place called the goaden boutique. Four men said to be dressed to the nines, a Million Dollars worth of watches gone. With heist after heist, a pattern was emerging. Except as we found out, no one could see it at the time. For one thing, as former interpol chief ron noble told us other problems seemed more pressing back then. In 1993 1994 the u. S. Had a crime epidemic robberies, rapes, murders, violent crime. Also people might forget in early 1993 is when the First World Trade Center bomb ogging occurred. So the u. S. As many other countries were focused on terrorism as well. And as we learned, there was another reason too. This was a pre9 11 era where police did not routinely share information. The Standard Operating Procedure was you collect fingerprints witness testimony and you put it in a database and you compare it against other information from your own country. You dont compare it internationally. Of course, the internet had barely begun. Google was just a funny word. Email only for nerds. Cell phones were still a luxury item back then and connections among National Police forces were rare. All in all, a great time to be an international jewel thief. But then one of the thieves made a mistake. He got caught. 1995, new york city. The fbi arrested a guy named alexander gupkvic for the honolulu robbery and then they checked the records and it turned out the nypd had arrested ako, as he was known for short, for boosting a bunch of diamonds from the diamond district right here. He was a canadian citizen, spoke very little english. Turned out he was from yugoslavia. Finally they put out the word internationally, anybody ever heard of this guy . Well, in fact somebody had. Ako was wanted in that 1993 robbery in basel, switzerland. Whats more we learned that the expensive watch he was wearing when Police Arrested him was one of the three stolen from the store in tokyo in 1994. Thats how police linked one man to all the high profile heists. By 1996 he was marking time on a u. S. Prison clock. So with this big fish in Lockup Police told us they naturally assumed they cracked a busy but singular operation. A oneman theft machine. But then something strange. The robberies didnt stop. Far from it. We found reports from all over the globe of these highly distinctive operations, all so similar. So quick, inventive, bold. But because Law Enforcement at the time didnt have any way to look at the whole picture, they didnt make the connection. We talked to british journalist Havana Marking who has closely tracked the history of this gang of thieves. Europe was just their playground, basically. They just knew that as long as they were over the border, they would get away with it. So the robbers dance in and out of country after country, the police plotting behind. Where they could fly into a country, commit a robbery, leave the country and for the most part the investigation would be of nationals others in the country. Then finally a few began to see it. We follow the trail to geneva switzerland, to speak to the swiss equivalent of the fbi. Back then he was one of the cops trying to figure out just who these people were. When did you first begin to notice some of these robberyies that were unusual or different . I think it was in geneva in 2002. At the beginning they were organized like small gangs. But how many gangs were there . Were they acting independently or were they somehow related . Part of something bigger . So many questions. Not many answers. One day it might be person a and person b, next person it would be a and c. Even as cops around the world struggled to figure out what was happening, the thieves were getting more and more sophisticated. Bigger schemes, more loot. Were in place van damme in paris. The heart of the world, some would say. Certainly the world of jewelry. In this 200 square meter area theres perhaps more expensive jewelry than any other place on the face of the globe. Then it happened here. 2001 the boucheron flagship store. Two men dressed in cover alls heated the windows with a portable torch. They melted off the security coating, hammered out the windows, made off with 1. 5 million worth of goods. When you talk about hitting a Jewelry Store, they get away with how much how much merchandise . How much money . It depends on the cases. Sometimes it could be 200 watches. After each heist, the detectives pored over the videotapes and the witness accounts, and they started to notice one thing the thieves seemed to have in common. We just know they were people coming from montenegro or serbia. What used to be called yugoslavia. The same place that was home to that thief the fbi nabbed in new york. A few slavic names, not much to go on. But soon the group would get another name one lifted straight from the movies. And the cops would form a reallife plan to battle them. Coming up the gang gets a hollywood nickname and seems to enjoy it. The pink panthers that i spoke to also really liked the term. They thought it was funny. But then the thieves make a critical error that could be their undoing. S it seemed no Jewelry Store was safe. From the mysterious and brazen band of thieves that was smashing their glass cases all around europe. Well, the police a step behind struggled with their few little pieces to solve an enormous puzzle. And then it happened. Imitated art and the thieves got their name. London 2003 the Graff Flagship store. Here they are, two of them and they work fast. 14 million worth of gems including several yellow diamonds and a rare blue diamond ring. It was the thieves biggest hit yet, britains biggest robbery ever. The chase and scuffle ensued. A Security Guard nappedbbed one of the thieves on the spot a serbian, but his accomplice got away and with most of the jewels. He stashed some with a local fixer and fled to the uk. Scotland yard got lucky. They found the fixer, also a serbian, holed up in a london flat with his girlfriend who had hidden that blue diamond ring in a jar of cold cream. The tactic as the tabloids screamed, came straight out of the movie return of the pink panther. Pink panther, irresistible. Of course, the name stuck. From then on if a heist is committed by a serbian, and quite a few were, the papers and the Police Called it a pink panther crime. The pink panthers that i spoke to also really liked the term. They also thought it was funny. Police believed the thieves were flaunting that new moniker. Notice the color of their shirts in this video. Maybe the name gave them motivation, too, because after 2003, the speed and the boldness of their heists as the video showed increased. Biarritz, france they painted a bench outside a jewelry shop thus discouraging potential witnesses from sitting down as they robbed the place. 2004, the paris antiques fair at the louvre museum, under bright lights and heavy security displayed a 16 million diamond. Then the prime ministers wife arrived. And eyes were distracted. The diamond vanished. 2005 brussels. In full view of Jewelry Store surveillance cameras four thieves took axes to the display cases and made off with over 500,000 worth of gems. Then in 2007 as we showed you before, two pink panthers hit sundrenched superrich monaco. And that heist it turned out, was a critical mistake. Because after the robbery, little monacos police chief decided it was time to get tough. Oh, no not the way you might think. He didnt hire cops or buy guns. He called interpol. I asked interpol to organize a meeting between all the countries who had robberies made by the pink panthers. Interpol is a Global Police organization tracking the worlds criminals and crime syndicates. Why did you think interpol was the right way to go . Because its one of the organizations where we can share all the operational informations about this. It was an almost quaint even nerdy approach form a committee . But as former interpol chief ron noble explained, it was a turning point. Monaco should really be given credit. It opened the investigation up because countries came together and said look we want to talk to you about this robbery that occurred. For the first time cops from Different Countries worked as a team and set up a database and there they were. Connections among the robberies they couldnt see before. For example, that heist in dubai 2007, it would be the panthers most spectacular production with those audi cars driving straight into a luxury mall. Afterwards dubai investigators recovered cell phone numbers and dna and fingerprints and sent the information to interpol. We put it in our database and the first hit we had we matched it to a pink panther problemry in liechtenstein. And just like that after 19 years, nearly 100 holdups and almost as many separate investigations the cops finally made the connection that had been there from the start. Suddenly we said wow, the pink panthers theyre actually engaging in robberies around the world. Investigators told us this was something they had never seen before a global conspiracy of thieves. And as they connected the dots the panthers to their crimes they made another connection to the watershed moment that unleashed it all. Good evening. Live from the berlin wall. November 9th, 1989, berlin. What a fine night it was. Or so it seemed to most of the world. With the iron curtain torn it wasnt long before civil wars began to rip apart what was once yugoslavia. Centuries old blood feuds boiled over in ethnic cleansing. By the year 2000 in the merciless world those ugly wars left behind a world devoid of work or hope for a future young men trained to fight turned to crime. These are guys who essentially there was no way out except to become a criminal. Even as those wars turned out this new breed of criminal another Historic Development in the 1990s made transnational crime much easier. The European Union was born and with it relaxed and unguarded borders. With the borders coming down organized crime groups that operated on a National Level were able to operate much more internationally. Thats when here in montenegro groups of des pretty men trained in violence with the ability to cross borders at will began to get a singular idea. And the pink panthers were born. Now the cops had a name and an origin story for these supervillains. But to learn how they operate, that would take more digging. And lead to some surprises. Coming up a rare look inside the gang revealing the secret of their success. Thats where all the real effort goes. And then why the pink panthers have taken on some seductive sidekicks. Its much easier to do it either as a woman or with a woman. Ahhh. Beautiful day in baltimore where most people probably know that geico could save them money on car insurance, right . You see the thing is geico well, could help them save on boat insurance too. Hey okay. Im ready to come in now. Hello . Im trying my best. Seriously, im. Im serious. Request to come ashore. Geico. Saving people money on more than just car insurance. New lipton sparkling iced tea. Refreshing tea infused with light, crisp, tiny bubbles. For a taste that lifts you up. Hmm. Mom, whats a best buy . Um, well its a great product. Its what you buy if youre a smart shopper. 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That cops across europe had joined forces and finally knew who they were dealing with was huge but to catch them they had to figure out how these pink panthers really operated. How did they plan and organize their hits . How did they manage to disappear so fast afterward . We look for answers at the next stop on our trail. Paris is one of the places they are always traveling. Paris. We came here to meet French Police captain herve. Why do they pick these beautiful cities . These sort of cities. Not so much in serbia or montenegro. No, you would not find. But the one thing they could find back home was a cache of weapons, many of them left in the ruins of that civil war. Some so of them were in the army so they know the guns. They know how to use a handgun. They used guns to threaten people they used tear gas and they used force, violence threat of force and violence. And yet, several cops told us the panthers seemed to be going out of their way to leave their victims alive. But thieves with hearts of gold . Oh no. By 2005 the cops started noticing Something Else. Their profile is not far different from the al qaeda terrorist profile. By that he meant an apparently unconnected group of individuals with a powerful central loyalty but not in this case to a cause or a person or a country. Only to money. Journalist havana martin. Theres no sort of pyramid hierarchy with a guy at the top ordering everyone around. Theres a kind of cell network where cells of five six guys who Work Together will have connections to the other groups. She spent years tracking the panthers for a documentary she called smash and grab. Its a title that works for the pink panthers because smash and grab is a term for a kind of theft where youre in and youre out. As she was filming, said martin, she gradualed earned the trust of several panthers who agreed to speak with her on one condition. She could not reveal their identities. And so she says she recorded the interviews and then added a few cinematic layers. If they spoke english, then i was able to then get access to lip sync the words. Then i filmed the actors then i animated the film. The result heres a panther who called himself mike. So tell me who are the pink panthers. Well, i dont have a badge that says pink panther on it. Were a network of teams working together. I was involved i became part of my group. Everybody has a specific job to do. Its when martin talked to mike and other panthers she said that she got it. The key to their success. Meticulous planning. The preparation before and the work after the smash and grab are way more important, and thats where all the real effort goes. And mike told her Something Else that surprised her, the panthers map out all those plans months in advance. Often beginning with the help of a woman. A woman has to be exceptional. She spoke to one of these socalled exceptional woman. A pink panther who called herself layla. Without woman, nothing would be done. Here a boastful layla told her how she would scout a jewelry shop to discover its routines. When does it open when does it go out for a coffee or how long theyd be out. To scout and to case the kind of places that youre going to steal, its much easier to do it either as a woman or with a woman. Then said layla, the female scout would return to her pink panther cell and help the planners get to their meticulous work. Another member of the gang will come down and draw everything she said exactly the layout of the shop. The plan was often ingenious. They knew someone who looked like normal like a client but what they do now, they put false hair glasses and sort of things a false beard, and these sort of things. And the plan to get out, even better. They jump into cars with one car opening the way and the other cars with the stuff inside. They run away with the cars to their apartment where they perhaps stay one or two days or back to italy, back to outside the border. Outside the border. And the border controls or lack thereof made it so simple. A swiss border is like a cheese. Like a hes . Like the gruyere with the holes, really easy to come in and go out. Escape in the new largely borderless europe . A tenminute fast ride from a fashionable street in geneva is a stone like this on any one of a hundred Little Country roads outside the city. On this side switzerland, on that side france. And theres nobody to tell you not to go there. It was inevitable perhaps that in all this cops and robbers stuff, a certain grudging respect has crept in here and there on both sides. Do you admire them in some way . Well in some way, yes, of course. A new way to make robbery very creative. Such adaptable, creative thieves, playing cat and mouse with the cops. For me its a game. Finally after 20 years of tracking the panthers and learning how they operated the cops felt they were ready to play the game and win. But were they really . Coming up investigators get a huge break, a chance sighting in a most unlikely place. I see big guy. Triggering a wild chase. We need now helicopters, we need to have a dog. Hes here. Music throughout unlike ordinary diapers, pampers has three absorbent layers to stay up to three times drier. So your baby can sleep soundly all night. Wishing you love sleep and play. Pampers theres moving. And theres moving with move free ultra. It has tripleaction support for your joints, cartilage and bones. And unlike the big osteobi flex pills, its all in one tiny pill. Move free ultra. Get your move on. New lipton sparkling iced tea. Refreshing tea infused with light, crisp, tiny bubbles. For a taste that lifts you up. I take prilosec otc each morning for my frequent heartburn. Because it gives me. Zero heartburn prilosec otc. 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May 2008 swiss detective glassy was over the border in france on quite another case. He was inside this hotel. I was there at the table with my french colleagues and swiss colleagues. Then he just happened to notice three men walking down the stairway into the lobby. And i see big guy. And suddenly he realized he knew one of them. Knew his face. From studying mug shot after mug shot from interpol. By sheer coincidence his longtime prey was right in front of him. What happened next seemed straight out of an action movie. One of the panthers made the cops and took off on foot. The detective in hot pursuit. He runs and he drops. The pink panther ran toward a school yard got caught on a gate. And i catch him at this moment. And we fight three or four minutes approximately. Hes a big guy. Yeah but he was light, and i was trying to keep him. And i was speaking to him. You cant give up stop stop. But he didnt. Instead the pink panther tore free and ran, cut and bleeding now, across the school yard. Like a movie scene with children in the school a big tall guy running like that. We jump over the fence. I dont know where he was. A farmer offered to join the chase, but the detective knew he needed much more help than that. Its one of the most wanted guys. We need now helicopters, we need a dog. Hes here. In the end a police dog sniffed the pink panther out. Hiding under the bushes. Even the elusive suspect seemed impressed. And he just said good job. The other bandits were arrested before they could leave the hotel. Three big pinks down but many more to go. Next country, monaco the Little Country whose police chief got interpol involved and was running his own war bens the panthers. Every day you have to lock at what is going well and what is going wrong and you have to correct what is going wrong. Now monaco was ready. Security cameras and its plain clothes spotters and in every jewelry shop a rogues gallery of known members of the pink panther supplied by interpol. Surely, they wouldnt try something under these conditions, would they . Yes, they would. October 2008 a car ran over a tourists foot. At first the man resisted medical attention but the pain was too great and the police man making the accident report thought the man and his companion looked somehow familiar. Translator i came to the realization that i recognized two people who were part of a search bulletin that was posted on the wall here. An interpol search bulletin. The men were alleged pink panthers, they had come it seemed to rob a Jewelry Store. Instead Police Arrested them. Two more down. On to paris, may 2009. The detective here got a tip from the swiss, two pink panthers were in Town Planning something. We worked two or three days to find the place where they were living. Here on a narrow street, a modest hotel. You had people stationed around the hotel. And we stayed organizedmorning. He set himself up in a cafe on the corner. And waited. Even pink panthers need their morning coffee. What was it like to see him walk in . It was a big surprise. I bet. You let him finish his coffee. No. The paris cops arrested the other thief back at the hotel. Two more pink panthers behind bars. In the last few years, police told us theyve rounded up several of the masterminds behind the gangs biggest jobs. They got this man, a top panther for almost 20 years and last years Spanish Police nabbed this one. One of the architects of that dubai heist. Was the tide finally turning . What started as a sort of very small tightknit group has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger, but equally the police have got better and better at catching them. Police have taken down key players. They had to be damaging to pink Panther Organization at its core and yet, even as the arrests piled up so did more robberies because now the game had changed. A whole new generation was joining up. Younger and more dangerous. The new generation is more violent. Next well take you deep into their lair where few dare to tread, and meet the original pink panther facetoface. Buckle up. Coming up an unprecedented ridealong with this gang of thieves. They told me would you like to participate in a Training Exercise . And then for investigators a stunning turn of events. Police around the world have locked up more than 200 pink panthers in just the last five years. But have the cops won the battle . No, they have not. One thing, as youll soon hear their enemy has changed. And for another, many from the same old bunch are right back on the street where they came from. The sentences in europe for Armed Robbery are not severe enough to get arrested and convicted and only spent a couple years in jail. Thats really not much of a deterrent. Where does a panther go then . Investigators told us that many of them hole up in this quiet unassuming spot a picturesque village. This is the former capital of montenegro and a former hangout of the pink panthers. A fact which we discovered has seemed to inspire perhaps tongue in cheek civic pride. Other than that from the looks of this quaint little town, youd never expect to find a jewel thief let alone a whole gang of them. But theyre here hiding in plain sight. Just a few years back, a french film crew equipped with hidden cameras interviewed the owner of a local grocery store. His name milan yovotch. His business isnt just gross ris. Just look at the color of his shirt. He was the original pink panther. The one whose girlfriend back in 2003 hid the blue ring in the giant jar of cold cream. He was arrested then but only served five years in prison. Milan wasnt exactly pleased to be interviewed, but he did answer the interviewers question and, as much as admit it, he was indeed the guy. Scott land yard put, you know, because they find something in what i done. They said that i copied some movie, i dont know. It was just you know spur of the time. Where am i going to put it . There is no films, theres no nothing, you know. And now everybodys being a panther. Everybody is connected with everybody. And i dont know anyone. Trust me. You know these people who got arrested around. And i dont care about none of them. I finished my stuff and thats it. Im done. You have regrets. Of course i have regrets. What i can do . Its past. Finished. Is he finished . Investigators told us that some members of the old guard are indeed packing it in. But a whole new bunch is rising to take their place, the young panthers. Watch out. The new generation of panthers are different. Theyve grown up and come from an environment which is much less disciplined. Baby panthers young, mean and greedy. The differences are pretty much the same as any other generational differences. Rocco is a former editor and chief of vice media. Last year he traveled to that unlikely criminal haven and met up with some of the new baby panthers. I guess you might say the younger tradition of panthers were 18 and 20. Just boys really. Yeah, theyre young. You two are training to become pink panthers. Why . [ speaking in Foreign Language ] you met them where, in a strip club. What was that all about . A gentlemans club. Because strip clubs are illegal in montenegro. Very well. However that club was historically a Meeting Place from what i was told o the panthers. He wanted to know how they learned to do what they do. And he said the young men in the bar made a proposal. They told me would you like to participate in a Training Exercise . I said im not going to rob a Jewelry Store. They said, no this is a friend and this is how we train. Cameras were rolling as he made his debut as a pink panther. Black ski mask and all. Pulling up to this mockedup store. And with those panthers in training smashing and grabbing every bit of cheap Costume Jewelry laid out for them. I cant say it wasnt a rush. It seemed to come straight out of the old panther playbook but, says swiss detective, this Younger Generation is not the same. Not even close. Its totally different. Theyre not so much professional. For example, those spectacular heists like dubai and monaco have simply stopped. Instead, recent panther heists are much smaller but far more frequent. The amount they can do when they do the heist is smaller, but they do a lot of them during the year to have approximately the same the same amount of money at the end of the year. Turned away from wellguarded old targets like paris and monaco and instead have focused on smaller less famously glittery places. In scandinavia, greece even pack home in montenegro. As they are looking for new places to rob, to steal from you have to recruit more and more people to get access to those new countries. And, with a new generation come new and disturbing behaviors. Here they are tying up a Jewelry Store manager in belgium in a heist just two years ago. The older guard of panthers seemed to take pride in leaving their victims unharmed. A restraint the newcomers seem to lack. The new generation is more violent. They are willing recruits from the gangs of serbia and montenegro. They behave more like mob employees, hired by bosses who want them tough by loyal. Theyre teenagers, some of them inexperienced in the world of hightech thievery. Prone to panic. When youre panicking, thats when really Dangerous Things happen and thats when people get hurt. I think probably the Younger Generation dont care so much. And people have been getting hurt even killed including Law Enforcement. We have already five different cases. One case cops died in montenegro and serbia. It was a robbery in a jewelry shop made by pink panthers. And so what once seemed like a cat and mouse game to investigators has become much deadlier. But it was another death that hit closest to home for interpol and their pink panther project. Former Monaco Police chief andre who we first interviewed in 2010. He helped create the International Force that took on the panthers. We were all really shocked. It happened in june 2013. A boating accident on the rivera. Or at least it looked like an accident. But he had many enemies in the criminal world. Suspicion of foul play has not gone away. And Monaco Police have still not closed their investigation. It was andre who had finally seemed to slow the advance of the pink panthers but now those baby panthers just get more and more hungry. When they do a heist, they learn about it and the skill of the team is growing up always. Though those shocking loit ning quick moments caught on camera may have become a kind of fact of life in a postmodern world. After all they got their name pink panthers, from the movie. And you know how it is with sequels. As long as theres money to be made. Who knows how many there will be. Keepers like these. Thats all for now. Im lester holt. Thanks for joining us. landmark week for progressive politics in america. The Supreme Court makes samesex marriage legal from coast to coast. Plus politicians from both parties say its time for the confederate battle flag to come down. By taking down the flag, we express its time to move the flag from the capitol grounds. The Affordable Health care act is here to stay. Were all excited. Well cover it all, victories for liberals president obamas growing legacy and how conservatives will respond. Ill be joined by two 2016 republican candidates bobby jindal, governor of louisiana and lindsey graham, senator from south carolina. Finally, terror abroad and concerns at home. How serious is the