Expropriative anarchism

Expropriative anarchism (anarquismo expropiador) is the name given to a practice carried out by certain anarchist affinity groups in Argentina and Spain which involved theft, robbery, scams and counterfeiting currency. The robberies done were called "expropriations on the bourgeoisie". It had its major peak between 1920 and 1935 and some of its most famous practitioners were Buenaventura Durruti, Francisco Ascaso, Severino Di Giovanni, Miguel Arcángel Roscigna, Francisco ("Quico") Sabaté, and Lucio Urtubia. It was different from French illegalism because it was not thought of as a way of life but as a way of reaching political ends such as financing revolutionary activities, anarchist propaganda and the release of anarchist prisoners.

Examples
Miguel Arcángel Roscigna and Andrés Vázquez Paredes, who had collaborated with Buenaventura Durruti and Los Solidarios when they were in Argentina, later executed a series of bombings against United States interests in response to the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. In this campaign, the notorious Italian expropriator Severino Di Giovanni joined in. Roscigna y Vázquez Paredes alongside Antonio Moretti and Vicente Moretti carried out a robbery on the Rawson Hospital of Buenos Aires in October, 1927, where they obtained the amount of 141.000 pesos. According to historian Oswaldo Bayer, Roscigna, with this money they financed the counterfeiting of Argentinian currency.

The Moretti brothers and three Catalans recommended by Durruti decided to rob the Cambio Messina in Montevideo, with an outcome of 3 deaths and only 4000 pesos. They ended up being arrested but shortly put in practice a spectacular jailbreak. Di Giovanni started publishing a magazine called Culmine and anarchist propaganda, all of which was financed partly by robberies. The anarcho-syndicalist publication La Protesta started criticizing Di Giovanni and his group in strong terms, even going so far as accusing him of being a spy and a police agent. Rosigna continued the expropriations but with the purpose of aiding anarchist prisoners.

Groups such as Rewolucyjni Mściciele (Revolutionary Avengers) and Chernoe Znamia (The Black Banner), active at the beginning of the 20th century, used expropriation as a means to fund their activities.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Lucio Urtubia, a Basque anarchist, robbed banks and assembled a forgery ring in Paris to fund the anti-Franco resistance in Spain. His most famous heist was a Traveller's cheque forgery scheme using First National Bank (now Citibank) checks to defraud them of millions of dollars. After his arrest, the French government negotiated on his behalf and convinced Citibank to settle out of court.