October 6, 2005

LEGENDARY CAT BURGLARS RECOUNT EVERY GLITTERING GEM IN ONE OF THE BIGGEST HEISTS IN HISTORY -- "60 MINUTES"

Over Their Career, They Stole Tens of Millions in Gems, Often While Victims Were Home Eating Dinner, Pioneering Techniques Today's Thieves Still Use to Victimize the Very Rich

Dominick Latella and Peter Salerno remember their Hobe Sound heist as if it was yesterday, though it was decades ago and just one of scores of jobs they pulled. And no wonder. They pulled off one of the largest home burglaries in history that night -- worth $12 million in gems. The retired master jewel thieves tell their story to Steve Kroft in one of their only interviews for a 60 MINUTES report to be broadcast Sunday Oct. 9 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

"Something like that you don't ever forget," says Latella of the night in Hobe Sound, Fla. more than 30 years ago when he and Salerno -- a duo known to law enforcement as "The Dinner Set Gang" -- lifted the mother lode. They used a raft to paddle to the exclusive waterfront property because there was only one road in and out -- too hard to drive undetected. Then Latella watched an heir to the DuPont fortune through a window as she and her husband ate dinner while Salerno got into the upstairs bedroom and hit pay dirt. "I went in the linen closet...start squeezing the sheets...the sheets were hard," recalls Salerno. "And I uncover it...it was a leather traveling case," he tells Kroft. Latella remembers, "And [Salerno] says, 'here, don't drop it, you're just about to become a millionaire.'"

Latella still savors what was inside. He began with the sapphires. "A 25 carat and a 22 carat, round-faceted sapphires. I recall a ruby, beautiful, all the marquis came up like a Christmas tree. A terrific emerald, a big emerald -- I don't know whether it was 12 or 14 or 15 carats," he tells Kroft. The biggest piece was lovingly recalled by Salerno, "It was a 17.65 natural pink, flawless pear-shaped diamond worth, at the time, $1.8 million," says Salerno. "Some Arab sheik has it now."

They weren't all $12 million jobs, but Latella estimates they hauled in loot worth "in the tens of millions" over a 20-year career in which they earned the reputation as the best. Retired Detective Billy Adams, who once tracked the burglars, tells Kroft, "In anything that you read in the last 40 years in regards to jewel thieves, Peter Salerno's name always comes up....He's the standard by which all other jewel thieves are judged, " says Adams. They hit the large homes and their average hit was about a quarter of a million dollars, back in the '70s, early '70s, a lot of money."

The Dinner Set Gang followed their rich victims, to Southern Florida in the winter and back up to their spring and summer homes in the wealthy suburbs of Philadelphia and New York. They researched their prey by finding them in the Forbes magazine list of wealthiest Americans, on Who's Who lists and by eyeing their homes in Architectural Digest magazine.

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They were brazen and careful. "I was the best," says Salerno, a man who once had the body of a gymnast who could climb up the sides of homes. Striking while victims were at home eating and their alarms turned off was their secret weapon. "They never expect you...to be in there with them while they're having dinner," Salerno tells Kroft. "[The best jewelry] is upstairs. They're not wearing it, because they're [home]."

Some estimate the number of cat burglars operating today in Florida alone at 100. The Palm Beach Sheriff's office says many of these thieves have learned the tools of their trade from The Dinner Set Gang, both of whom went to prison. Salerno, currently serving time on a drug charge, has no regrets. "[I liked] the excitement," he says. Latella, pointing out nobody ever got hurt, still regrets one aspect of his former trade. "The certain regrets I have is if I've scared anybody -- from being violated....I'm sure a lot of people felt that way," he says.

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Press Contact: Kevin Tedesco 212-975-2329 kev@cbsnews.com