The Ioanid Gang () is the name given by Communist propaganda to a group in Communist Romania named after two of its members, Alexandru and Paul Ioanid. They were accused of carrying out on 28 July 1959 the most famous bank robbery in a Communist state. Timeline An armed group of six Jewish Romanian intellectuals and Communist Party cadres (Alexandru Ioanid, Paul Ioanid, Igor Sevianu, Monica Sevianu, Sașa Mușat, and Haralambie Obedeanu) were alleged to have stolen 1,600,000 Romanian lei (about 250,000 US dollars in 1959) from an armoured car of the National Bank of Romania in 1959. The first five were alleged to have been in a getaway car, while Obedeanu was alleged to have been in a telephone cabin, keeping the bank's phone line busy. The case was investigated by the Securitate, Communist Romania's secret police, and the supposed perpetrators were arrested within two months. They were rounded up in night-time raids, tried behind closed doors, and all but one sentenced to death. The executions, also kept under secrecy, including for family members, were carried out in 1960. Monica Sevianu, the only woman involved, had her sentence commuted to forced labor for life because she was pregnant with her second child. In 1964, following an amnesty of political prisoners, she was allowed to emigrate to Israel. "Gang" members Alexandru "Lică" Ioanid, birth name Herman D. Leibovici, born in 1920. Communist Party member and lieutenant-colonel of the police, he had been married to the sister-in-law of Alexandru Drăghici, head of the Securitate secret police. After holding different positions, among them that of head of the police legal department, from which he was fired in March 1959, he was pensioned two months later. Paul Ioanid, birth name Leibovici, born in 1923, the younger brother of Alexandru Ioanid. An engineer, aeronautics specialist and airplane pilot, he was a well-known newspaper and radio commentator on space flight issues. He had received his Ph.D. in Moscow, where he had studied with Andrei Tupolev and Oleg Antonov. A prominent Communist Party member, he had been a professor and head of the aeronautics department at the Military Academy. After working on behalf of Romania at the secret Soviet space programme, he was investigated by the Securitate upon returning home. Igor "Gugu" Sevianu, birth name Herșcovici, born in 1923. Sevianu was an aviation engineer and Communist Party member who had participated in sabotage operations against the