THE TWO FOUR-DOOR AUDIS, one black, the other white, came crashing through the mall entrance. Both cars were moving at high speeds, the black sedan in reverse, white car riding close to its front bumper. The black car swerved and stopped inches from a shuttered glass entry door to a jewelry shop, white car idling and facing from the entrance. Five men wearing hoods over their heads got out of the cars, moving fast, hammers in hand and smashed the glass windows next to the door. The drivers remained in the cars. The men entered the store and exited soon as they heard one of the drivers, a woman, hit the horn of an Audi twice, the black bags in their hands filled with high-end expensive jewels and gems. They got into the cars, kicked in the gears and drove out of the shopping mall. The entire operation took less than two minutes to execute and the bandits escaped with a haul worth an estimated $3.4 million.

The spectacular heist took place at the Wafi shopping mall in Dubai in 2007 and to date no suspects have been apprehended. But ask any detective working the burglary division of any major police force in Europe, Asia or the Middle East and they will be quick to tell you who it was that pulled off one of the most brazen heists in history.

The Pink Panthers.

The have achieved legendary status since they first were formed in 1999.

They grew out of turmoil, allegedly seeking revenge on a world that had turned against them. The members of the gang are mostly of Serbian descent, born and raised in what had once been Yugoslavia and each one a survivor of the brutal mass killings and ethnic cleansing that went on in that land for far too long a time in the early 1990’s. By 1994, inflation had brought the economy to ruin and forced people to turn to drastic measures simply in order to survive. The government, such as it was, could no longer be counted on to care for its citizens and chaos reigned. In no short order, a black market was established and thriving and soon many previous law-abiding men and women found themselves on the other side of the ledger, working as criminals in order to bring food to their families. A number of these men and women quickly realized there was a great deal of money to be made in the midst of all the madness. And it was out of this economic and social upheaval that the gang now known as the Pink Panthers was born.

The Pink Panthers are a loose confederation composed of roughly 220 members—with a core group of 30 top-tier jewel thieves—based primarily in Montenegro, just north of the Italian border. In the years they’ve been in operation they have, according to law enforcement documents, been responsible for well over 500 heists that have netted them roughly $742 million.

Most of the gang members have never met one another, nor do they even know the names of other associates. Each gang member is given a task handed to him or her by a supervisor, often times in the form of a note left at a bar or a voice mail left on an untraceable phone. That’s the extent of the contact. The entire network of thieves spans several countries and regions, each cell specializing in a specific field of operation—one group handles fake identification papers; another is in charge of weapons; a third gathers field intelligence reports; still another monitors police activity.

They have proven to be far beyond the scope of the law and even more difficult to infiltrate. They avoid phones whenever possible and when they do, no names are used during the conversation. They use Internet cafes and troll the web under false names. They steal cars rather than rent them and then dispose of them when they are no longer needed, the VIN numbers long since burned off. They have passports from at least a dozen countries and several aliases under which they can travel freely.

They are organized but there is no discernable pattern to their jobs, nor any ascertainable structure to the core group of the outfit. While 90 Panthers have been caught since 2003, none have given the police any information regarding the whereabouts or method of operation of the gang for the simple reason that no one knows. In the 2013 documentary about the Panthers, SMASH AND GRAB, one of them, identified only as David explains: “There is no big boss. No boss at all. We are each given a particular job and that’s all we know. That one job. There is no chain of command. There is no one to report to, no one to check in with.”

But yet some leaders have been captured.

This past February, in Spain, police arrested Borko Illinic, a 33-year-old Serbian who they have circled as the leader of the Pink Panthers. He has been fingered as the lead suspect in the Dubai heist which if convicted of that job has him facing a life in prison. He is also wanted in a dozen countries for having committed the stunning total of 120 heists that has brought the gang an estimated haul of 116 million pounds sterling.

Prior to that, on March 8, 2012, Mitar Marjanovic was arrested in Rome, his fingerprints found on two stolen items left behind by members of his crew. But don’t count on them staying in for very long. The Panthers have a history of jailbreaks nearly as impressive as their string of robberies.

The Swiss province of Vaud houses the notorious Orbe Prison. Last year, two vehicles rammed the front gates of the prison at 7:35 p.m., breaking through barbed wire and fence. The occupants stepped out of their vehicles each one equipped with AK-47’s and opened fire on the prison guards. The inmates were in the yard during an exercise break. The heavy firepower provided enough cover for two Panthers—Milan Poparic and Adrian Albrecht—to jump into the vehicles and flee the prison. The chief of the prison, Beatrice Metraux, called the actions, “an invasion rather than an escape.”

In 2003, at Villefranche-sur-Saone Prison in France, Panther Dragan Mikic was freed as his comrades showered the towers with heavy rounds from a Kalashnikov while other members of the team used bolt cutters and ladders to held him in his escape. Christos Parthenis, a Greek Police Captain in charge of the Interpol Unit that coordinates all activities having to do with the Pink Panthers says, “They can be very violent when they engage with the police or liberate fellow comrades from jail.”

Their motto is a simple one. As one Panther said, “If it’s for rich people, then it’s for us. Where they have rich stuff, we can be there to take it.”

As they did in 2004 in what is the biggest jewel theft in Japanese history. The plan was clean and as easy to follow as a paint-by-numbers drawing. A man walks into a store and writes something on a sheet of paper and hands it to a salesperson working the counter. As the clerk leans over to read what is written the man hits his face with a dose of pepper spray. A second man breaks the glass with a hammer and grabs the Comtesse de Vedome necklace—considered a masterpiece of fine jewelry with 116 diamonds stenciled across it worth an estimated $24 million. The two thieves then race out of the store, jump on waiting motorcycles and disappear. The entire operation took less than 40 seconds. Many law enforcement authorities point to that heist as the moment the Pink Panthers went from jewel thieves to international celebrities.

And from there, the fame and the heists grew in number. At Harry Winston’s in Paris in 2008, four men wearing wigs and women’s clothing entered the store and within minutes cleaned it out, including several of the stores hidden storage boxes. They stayed for close to two minutes this time, taking in a haul valued at $102 million.

The Pink Panthers were given their name by detectives from Interpol. It was in 2003 after cops in Britain had arrested a reputed member of the gang when he hid a stolen diamond ring inside a jar of facial cream as happened in a scene from the Peter Sellers-Blake Edwards Inspector Clouseau comedy, “The Pink Panther.” The name stuck.

In 2007, alarmed by the number of heists, Interpol established The Pink Panthers Project. In addition to coordinating cases across as many as 35 countries, the Project collects data on the crimes and the criminals, breaks down existing information and shares information on specific cases with investigators around the world, each one looking for that missing link that could lead them to nail the Panthers before they can strike again.

According to a reputed former member of the Panthers, the Project is a waste of time and manpower. “No one can find what doesn’t exist,” he says, refusing to give his name. “There is no gang in the true sense of that word. You can’t follow us or find us meeting in a bar or a restaurant. It’s a well-structured but loose knit organization. It’s not just one gang. It’s many gangs working under one very large umbrella. They’ll never be able to break the Panthers. Yes, they’ll catch one or two here and a few more there. But to bring down the Panthers, completely wipe them away? That will never happen because it simply can’t happen.”

If catching the thieves is considered a difficult task, retrieving the jewels has proven to be almost impossible. “When the jewels have diamonds it is very easy to extract them and move them separately on the open market,” says Captain Parthenis. “The main body of the gold can be melted down. There are several ways to track the loot but it is not easy.”

The Pink Panthers take their time before hitting a target, leading police to believe many of the heists already have buyers in place even before the job happens. On occasion, stolen diamonds are handed over on highways or in parking areas, the buyers arriving in vans equipped with diamond-grading machines so they can ascertain the value of the jewels right there in real time. The stones are then cut and brought back into the open market. Diamonds often end up in Holland or Israel. Watches head to Serbia and Russia. The cash is laundered in Belgrade and then in turn is invested in legal enterprises ranging from restaurants to office buildings. The “fence” in each case receives 30% of the market value of the diamonds. He is also responsible for drumming up untraceable certificates of origin, placing each stolen diamond in a country far removed from where it was naturally found. Cash payments of over $20,000 have to be traced electronically. But there are no such controls when it comes to diamonds. It’s a fairly open playing field and no one plays the game better than The Pink Panthers.

The international attention they have received has been aided by the colorful ways they pull off their heists and by their sense of the theatrical:

In 2004, two Panthers simply waited inside a store until the wife of the French Prime Minister entered. The staff, distracted by the visit hardly noticed the men walking off with 11 million Euros of unprotected jewels.

During a heist in Cannes, they painted a public bench across from the jewelry store they were robbing so as no witnesses would be able to catch them in action.

In 2005, they blasted their way through a gift shop and into the jewelry store next door, the explosion drowned out by the fireworks of a passing carnival.

In a St. Tropez heist, they left the police cars chasing them stuck in tourist traffic as they made their escape on a pair of speedboats.

In Dubai, eight Panthers drove two limos through a window of Graff jewelers and pulled away with eight million pounds sterling worth of goods.

And so the legend grew, much to the annoyance of cops throughout Europe and Asia and the Middle East.

“You must be born to do this job,” one Panther who gave his name as Michel said with a certain air of pride. “You need brains, knowledge and experience. You only get to do a big job after spending a number of years doing little ones and learning your trade. Not anyone can do it. The women we chose have to be exceptional and beautiful. There is one woman assigned to every job. And she needs to stand out. All it takes is one mistake along the line and the job is botched. And so far, we haven’t made any mistakes.”

None of the Panthers fear being captured and facing double-decades worth of prison time. “Why should I worry about going to jail?” one Panther asks. “I know, sooner or later, someone is going to come and get me out. Besides, what can the police get from me if I am caught? I’ve been in the group for close to four years now and I don’t know anyone else who is a member. So how can I be of any help to them? They are wasting their time and the people’s money. We are untouchable.”

But the police have no plans on giving up. Not Captain Parthenis who scoffs at the image that has been created of the Pink Panthers. “I don’t agree there is a romantic air about them,” he says. “This is crime. It creates profit and we have to address it professionally. We will continue doing our job until these people have been arrested.”

If they are indeed captured and brought to justice, it will be because of the dogged work of men like Captain Parthenis and the Interpol Pink Panthers Project and of a Western European detective named Andre Notredame. He is a Belgian whose name is not listed in any public directory or police organizational chart. But no one working the Pink Panthers beat knows as much about the gang as does the quiet, determined detective from Belgium. He does not give interviews as a rule, seldom speaks in public. He has one mission and one only: bring the Panthers in or bring the Panthers down.

In the meantime, as the chase continues, the legend around the Panthers continues to grow.

In July of last year, in Cannes, a Panther wearing a ski mask and holding a gun walked into the Cannes Hotel, stared down three security guards and in less than a minute walked off with $136 million in jewels, quite possibly the largest heist of its kind ever. And to make it even better, there had been another heist, a day earlier at the Carlton International Hotel, where Panthers walked off with $106 million in diamonds and jewels. The fact that the robbery occurred in the same hotel that was featured in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film “To Catch a Thief” with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly only added to the luster.

This past New Year’s Eve, four masked men forced their way into the Apple Store in Paris shortly after 9 p.m. The store had been closed for three hours. They ignored the large displays of iPads, Macs and iPhones and took only stocked packages. A parked truck waited for them close to the entrance. By 9:40 p.m. the truck was loaded and on its way, carrying an estimated $1.3 million in stolen goods. “They prepared their coup pretty well,” a spokesman for the French Police Union, Unsa, said.

There were an estimated 300,000 people crowding the nearby Champs-Elysees that evening, preparing to celebrate the arrival of the New Year.

Somewhere in a truck heading out of the city of Paris a small group of Pink Panthers were already celebrating the latest in an endless string of successful heists.

Not surprisingly, Hollywood has already taken notice of the gang’s exploits. Last year’s documentary on the Panthers garnered wide attention and great reviews and is currently available on DVD. On the feature film side, a movie is being developed with Leonardo Di Caprio being eyed for the leading role.

The Pink Panthers live pretty much a fearless existence, making them a rare breed in the organized crime world. Their home base of Montenegro is known to be of little threat to them especially since they have no extradition treaty with any country. They know all the tricks to avoid detection, some going so far as to wipe down their glasses after they have a drink so as to eliminate any trace of a fingerprint. They don’t show off their take. They don’t flash the cash and instead invest it wisely, usually through a network of friends and families, keeping their names clear even of the legitimate businesses. They select their jobs with an experienced eye, yachts of billionaires rumored to be the next viable targets.

The Pink Panthers are indeed a gang like no other law enforcement has ever encountered. To date, none of the heists they’ve pulled off has resulted in anyone’s death, adding to the gang’s allure. And there has always been a universal appeal to the rogue thief, the master of his craft who gets away clean and leaves behind an angry and confused band of cops.

In his office in Geneva, Switzerland, Detective Yan Glassey, who has been hunting the gang for a number of years, has a large stuffed Pink Panther in his office. He is hanging on the back of his door, a noose around his neck.

It might all just be wishful thinking.

And it might be the closest any cop is likely to get in capturing the greatest heist gang in history.

And that may well be the Pink Panthers biggest crime of all.