Funding the Revolution, Beating the Banks

 https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/02/14/funding-the-revolution-beating-the-banks/

Bank robberies have been a means to gather funds for revolutionary organizations for more than a century. From the Russian narodniks to the Bolsheviks to the Black Liberation Army and countless others similarly inspired, the expropriations of funds from capitalism’s reservoirs of wealth have funded numerous acts of rebellion and ongoing revolutionary movements. Perhaps no single individual in contemporary times is better known in Europe for such actions than the Basque left anarchist Lucio Urtubia Jiménez. Familiar to many as Lucio, he was born in Navarro in 1931 and died in Paris in 2020. He is the focus of a 2007 biographical film simply titled Lucio and a 2022 film titled A Man of Action. Perhaps his most famous expropriation was the scam he pulled on Citibank involving counterfeit traveler’s checks that resulted in Citibank paying him off to the tune of millions. Although his politics were anarchist, he helped dozens of leftist groups with the funds he stole from the big capitalists through robberies and forgery; the Black Panthers and anti-fascist/anti-Franco groups in Spain were among the benefactors.

Recently, AK Press published a translation of his autobiography. Titled To Rob a Bank is an Honor, it’s a riveting tale of adventure and anarchism