'The Helicopter Heist' Recap & Ending Explained: What Happened To The Crew?

A group of skilled ex-cons desperate to score big, the heist of a lifetime, and a tough-as-nails investigator who is hell-bent on catching the would-be perps with her own career on the line—sounds like a perfect recipe for an engaging heist thriller, something that Netflix’s Swedish series, The Helicopter Heist, aims to be but falls short of fuel to a lack of entertainment factor. The series chronicles the events preceding and following the real-life helicopter robbery incident of the G4S Cash Service building of Västberga in 2009, which is still the most high-profile, one-of-a-kind case of a smash and grab in the history of the country. By taking a closer look at the lives of the people involved with the investigation, The Helicopter Heist tries to focus on the human angle of the case without glamorizing the meticulousness or expertise of the criminals like narratives such as these generally do. However, the characterization and dramatic elements in the story feel generic, and at times, the eight-episode series feels stretched as a result.

Spoilers Ahead

Why Did Rami Return to His Old Life?

The Helicopter Heist begins with a certain Rami Farhan’s narration of his heartfelt letter addressed to his wife, Karin, as he apologizes for returning to his life of crime. At present, Rami, having taken part in the most infamous heist in Sweden’s history, is in hiding in the Dominican Republic and is being tailed by troublesome folks. As he feels that he is in mortal danger, Rami has decided to write a confession to his wife in his final moments in hopes of earning her forgiveness. Rami entrusts the letter to a waitress and asks her to send it to the specified address so that it reaches Karin. Rami’s confession reveals intriguing details about his own secretive life and about the infamous helicopter heist itself. 

Rami recounts his time spent with childhood friend Michel, as the duo had resorted to a life of crime since an early age. The duo of small-time thieves grew up to be infamous robbers with their own crew and whatnot, and Rami credits Michel, the mastermind of their operations, for having a talent for these sorts of things. For Michel, the passion for crime superseded monetary consideration, and at one stage he took part in robberies solely because he enjoyed the thrill of finding his particular vocation. However, he and Rami parted ways when Rami, who ended up finding himself behind the bars, became a family man—marrying his beloved, Karin, and having two sons. For the sake of his family, Rami turned his back on his past life and tried to make an honest living as a chef. 

At this point, Rami came across Michel after a long time, and as the friend duo caught up, Rami shared how he was trying his hand at a shrimp-import business, which could potentially change his fortune in a major way—allowing him and his family to have a house of their own, away from the pesky racist landlords of their short-term lease apartment. Rami had put everything he had, borrowed from his friend Granit, into making this import business functional and was really optimistic about finding success. Michel congratulates Rami on his new life, but at the same time reminds him that he has an opportunity if he ever decides to turn to his old life. Michel himself tried to take his own life in a new direction; along with one of his associates, Zoran, he tried to venture into the briefcase business, but eventually failed, prompting him to return to his old ways. 

Rami’s import business is nipped in the bud when he realizes he has been scammed. To add to his misery, Granit is revealed to have borrowed the money he gave to Rami from a bunch of dreaded Spanish gangsters, who begin threatening Rami and his family if he isn’t able to recover the amount within a month’s duration. To top it all off, Rami has a heated argument with the owner of the restaurant where he worked and loses his job as a result. Having no options at his disposal, Rami turns to Michel, who proposes to him the idea of robbing the Västberga cash depot, a highly fortified building teeming with guards, nearly impossible to access from outside. Michel has already begun a relationship with one of the employees, Alex, to gather intel about the building and its security, and he floats the idea of infiltrating the place from above, using a chopper. 

How Did Hamshik And Her Team Learn About The Heist?

Any good heist planning consists of four major stages: research, recruiting, execution, and escape, as is well highlighted in the series as Michel takes the lead to meticulously plan the daring operation. Apart from Rami, their old associate/partner in crime, Nikolas, aka Nicke—a demolition expert—is brought into the core team. Michel’s buddy, Zoran, an elusive lifelong criminal, is a part of the main crew as well, given his contacts are vital to ensuring the overall success of the mission. The plan is to swoop down on the building with a chopper, blast a hole in the roof, access the cash depot within a short period of time, and escape with the loot on the chopper, thereby avoiding the stringent security measures installed throughout the entire building. The two police choppers located in close proximity to Stockholm will be taken care of using a false bomb threat, thereby ensuring a safe escape. Now even though the plan appears simple, it depends on too many variables to go off without a hitch, the first of which begins with finding a reliable helicopter pilot who can be trusted with the secrecy of the mission at hand. Zoran recruits a former air force pilot, Filip, who appears to have a shady past and a notorious reputation. 

The narrative focus shifts to Leonie Hamsik, a detective in the major crimes division of the Swedish national police, who is being grilled by the Internal Affairs department after assaulting an alleged child rapist, who happened to be a person influential enough to evade legal repercussions for his actions. Hamsik is a single mother who is already exasperated enough with the difficulties of maintaining a healthy work-life balance, and now, with IA’s pressure threatening her career, she finds herself caught between a rock and a hard place. However, Leonie gets a chance to get her life back on track and evade the IA when she is summoned by Foreign Affairs to lead a secretive task force to thwart the heist planned by Michel and co. As it turns out, to evade consequences for his past actions, Filip had sought protection from the Serbian government, and after getting recruited by Zoran for the heist, he ratted him out to the Serbian authorities, who contacted the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to warn them about the upcoming heist. Leonie is promised by the National Police Chief, Lena, that if she succeeds in nabbing the conspirators, she will make sure to keep IA off her back. 

Zoran’s car and apartment get wiretapped, but the police fail to obtain any intel about his other accomplices. On the other hand, Michel arranges funds for the operation by robbing ATMs, while Rami brings the building planning blueprint, upon which Michel works by acquiring navigational intel from Alex. Things go sideways yet again when Filip decides to flee with his family after getting his advance paycheck, duping both the heist crew and Serbian authorities in the process. It would have been wise to ditch the plan after this, as it entailed a risk of getting exposed, but a headstrong Michel implored Zoran to find a replacement. After the trail went cold, Hamsik and co. waited a bit until Hamsik decided to use a different strategy to pry out information. Her late brother, Fittja, used to be a good friend of Zoran, and using that connection, she met him directly. As the duo caught up, Hamsik was able to learn that Zoran and his crew are still searching for a pilot, which means their heist planning has not been abandoned after all. It should be mentioned at this point that the authorities had learned about the tentative month when the operation was going to take place, without knowing the exact date. 

Was the Heist Successful?

Zoran met a skillful pilot, once again with a shady past, named Axel, whose addiction issues had led him to suffering from a neurotic condition, familial issues, and owing money to a notorious crowd. Hamsik and co. learn about this by listening in on the conversation between the duo and also get a vital piece of information—the exact date when the heist is going to take place—although the exact location still remains unknown. 

As D-Day approaches closer, Rami feels mentally pressured, as he cannot afford any slip-ups at this stage; there is no going back for him. Rami struggles to balance his life and preparation for the heist, and things get so laughably bad that he has to bring his young toddler along with him to a weapons deal. Zoran and Michel learn about the authorities wiretapping Zoran, which once again jeopardizes the operation, but Michel rightly assumes that the intel available to the cops is minimal, because they do not know anything about the rest of the crew, and he insists on going along with the original plan. Karin learns about Rami getting fired from his job and assumes that he has gone back to his old ways, and eventually she confronts Rami about it. Rami maintains his stance that he’s doing all this for his family, even though he isn’t sure how much he himself trusts his own words. Days before the heist, the crew members ‘disappeared’ from their regular lives in order to maintain secrecy, and as Rami decided to leave his family for a while, Karin gave him an ultimatum—to either choose his operation or his family. Rami chose the former and justified it with his devotion to his family. 

The crew gathered in their hideout on the specified day when the heist was supposedly going to take place, and the authorities prepared to catch them red-handed by installing additional security measures in possible locations. However, falling for one simple yet effective trick, the authorities were shaken off their trail—Zoran had lied about the date, and the heist was going to take place a week later than the date he’d mentioned to Alex. As a result, Hamsik and her task force return empty-handed despite waiting for a couple of days. Facing the ire of higher-ups for botched intel, the task force gets disbanded, and Hamsik remains stuck in her miserable situation of getting targeted by IA. Believing the crew has abandoned their plan, the authorities cast aside the investigation on Zoran as well. 

On the day of the operation, a series of unprecedented events follow, as happens with any plan, which results in the crew improvising and adapting to new situations. But even with a liability like Axel, who can not seem to hold his nerve during the operation, the crew manages to pull off the heist without firing a single round. Even without jeopardizing anyone’s lives, they manage to steal millions. Zoran successfully distracted the local cops, whose delayed response resulted in the timely escape of the crew, even though their planned timing almost doubled during the mission. Things go bad after the heist, and a mistake by Axel costs the crew everything. According to the plan, Axel was supposed to go to a rendezvous point from where he would have been brought to a safe location and the chopper would have been destroyed. However, his unstable mind got spooked by the presence of additional crew, and he left the helicopter at a different location, getting himself seen by locals in the process. A mistake of such proportions should have cost him his life, but Zoran spared him after learning the terrible truth. To add on to their pile of misery, Rami is revealed to have accidentally cut himself during the operation and left his DNA at the crime scene as well. After learning this, Michel suggests Rami lay low in the Dominican Republic for a few days, where Rami is tailed by American DEA agents who consider him to be a drug dealer. Alternatively, he mistakes them for the Spanish gangsters and, scared for his life, Rami writes a confession letter to his wife. 

What Happened To The Crew At The End?

Needless to say, a crime of this magnitude shakes the Swedish police department, and the news of the authorities failing to prevent the incident even after having preemptive knowledge about it, and Hamsik feels pressure from higher-ups who insist she wrap up the case fast—even though they themselves abandoned their lead in the first place. Following clues of eyewitnesses and a trail of burner phone communications, and the employees of the cash depot who were hiding at the time of the heist, Hamsik tries to draw a proper pattern to reach the suspects, and Axel is at the top of the list with Zoran. It should be mentioned at this point that Alex, Michel’s girlfriend, recognizes him as one of the perpetrators during the police interrogation but chooses not to expose him. 

After Axel and Zoran, Rami also pops up on the suspect list after his DNA is found at the crime scene, and tracing the burner phone communication chain of which Axel was a part as well, Michel and Nicke are identified as possible suspects as well. Eventually, the five core members are apprehended and detained by the authorities. Michel and Nicke’s involvement can’t be proven, and they receive shorter sentences, whereas Axel and Rami suffer the worst as the evidence is directly connected to the duo. Rami’s life indeed goes down the gutter as his wife, Karin, leaves him for good, taking their kids along. Although it hasn’t been brought to focus, Hamsik probably gets free from the IA investigation following her successful capture of Michel and his crew, even though the authorities never found the amount which was stolen. Could it be that Michel and his crew had stashed it away to utilize it much later, knowing they would get caught eventually? It doesn’t matter, because their actions ruined their own lives along with their loved ones, and no amount of money can ever fix that. 

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