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Over 40 years ago, Charlie Chaplin was the protagonist of a macabre and unusual story. It was quite a feat, considering he was already dead!

On March 1, 1978, his corpse was stolen and held by grave robbers, who hoped to cash in on a ransom. The whole event was quite audacious as far as crimes go.

Intrigued? Then click through the gallery to learn more.

▲On March 1, 1978, the world was shocked to learn about the theft of the corpse of one of cinema's greatest geniuses.

▲Charlie Chaplin died of a stroke December 25, 1977, at age 88. His body was buried in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland.

▲According to reports, two men spent two hours digging up the grave under heavy rain to get to Chaplin's coffin.

▲The thieves fled and left a heap of soil beside the grave. They wanted the police to find out what had happened as soon as possible, and by the next morning the news had already surfaced.

▲Swiss police and Interpol spent about 10 weeks investigating, without finding any clues about the whereabouts of the body or the perpetrators.

▲Anonymous phone calls, giving false information about the whereabouts of the coffin, also ended up disrupting the investigation.

▲Some of these phone calls went even further. Chaplin's children were threatened and a cloud of fear hovered over the family, according to reports.

▲One of Chaplin's eight children recalled the episode very clearly. Eugene Chaplin said the atmosphere in the house was very tense, especially because a few days after Chaplin's body was stolen Italian politician Aldo Moro was kidnapped and murdered.

▲With the absence of news about the theft of Chaplin's body, many people started to speculate about what actually happened. Several conspiracy theories arose.

▲One of the theories was that the grave robbery was done by anti-Semites. Rumors had it that Chaplin, who was buried in an Anglican cemetery, was Jewish.

▲Another hypothesis was that the perpetrators of the crime were Nazis who disapproved of the parody of Adolf Hitler made by Chaplin in the film 'The Great Dictator' (1940).

▲There was also a strong belief that the thieves were, in fact, Chaplin's fans, who had exhumed the corpse to bury him in England, his country of origin.

▲In reality, the thieves who stole Chaplin's coffin were amateurs and desperate. First, they demanded a specific ransom, but then began to negotiate the amount.

▲The robbers sounded nervous and simulated a different voice every time they called the Chaplin mansion. After that, they began asking for different amounts in return for the coffin.

▲First, the kidnappers demanded 600,000 Swiss francs. Chaplin's widow, Oona, refused the request. That's when the thugs changed the currency and asked for US$600,000, El País described.

▲Oona Chaplin was a tough negotiator. The ransom value eventually fell to US$500,000, and the widow declined again. Of the initially requested 600,000 Swiss francs, the value of the ransom ended up dropping to $100,000.

▲But what the rookie thieves didn't expect was that the arrangement made for handing over the money in exchange for the corpse was a police trap.

▲The deal was that the family butler would deliver a briefcase with US$100,000 to the criminals.

▲According to the Independent, a Swiss policeman disguised himself as the family's butler, who was the one who answered the phone calls, and drove the family's Rolls Royce to the meeting point.

▲However, a local postman was surprised to see an unknown man driving the Chaplin family car and followed it. Police arrested the postman by mistake and the deal was off.

▲The thieves said that they would call the Chaplin residence to renegotiate the ransom on May 17 at 9:30 am.

▲The police then led a successful surveillance operation in more than 200 phone booths in Lausanne. They eventually caught the criminals, according to the Independent.

▲One of the criminals was Roman Wardas, a 24-year-old man from Poland. His associate was Gantscho Ganev, a 38-year-old Bulgarian, reveals the BBC.

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The men were both mechanics who were desperate because of their precarious financial conditions. They confessed that they wanted to commit a crime to get quick money, but they didn't want to resort to violence.

▲The idea of stealing Chaplin's corpse came about when they read a similar story in a newspaper.

▲Wardas, who conceived the plan, was sentenced to four and a half years of forced labor, while Ganev was sentenced to 18 months.

▲The criminals sent Oona Chaplin an apology letter. The widow forgave them.

▲The men remembered having buried the coffin in a cornfield. But it took so long to negotiate a ransom that the rain caused the plantation to grow.

▲A farmer was surprised by the 'illustrious' invasion on his land.

▲Chaplin's body was removed and taken to the original grave.

▲The landowner, who was initially furious about the searches, paid tribute to the artist with a plaque. According to reports, the memorial plaque says that Charlie Chaplin had rested there for a brief period of time.

▲'The Price of Fame' (2014) depicts the curious story. The French comedy was directed by Xavier Beauvois and tells the saga of the marginalized immigrants who dug out Charlie Chaplin's coffin for a ransom.

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The Chaplin family supported the making of the film, giving access to the archives, and even allowing them to use film clips and soundtracks of the actor and director. Eugene Chaplin, (second, from left to right), was at the movie premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

The unusual story of Charlie Chaplin’s stolen corpse

Grave robbers stole Chaplin's body on March 1, 1978, and held it for ransom

26/03/18 por StarsInsider

CELEBRITY Oddities

Over 40 years ago, Charlie Chaplin was the protagonist of a macabre and unusual story. It was quite a feat, considering he was already dead!

On March 1, 1978, his corpse was stolen and held by grave robbers, who hoped to cash in on a ransom. The whole event was quite audacious as far as crimes go.

Intrigued? Then click through the gallery to learn more.