For levels of sheer excitement and entertainment, there’s not much that comes close to a good office raid. And when we say office raid, we mean armoured police kicking down doors, expensive suits scampering down the fire escapes, top secret documents flying around and generally the type of mayhem that Bruce Willis in a white tank top would be proud to put his name to.

The combination of loud noises, angry policemen and big guns (sometimes) upsetting the usually rather stifled atmosphere of the office is one that never ceases to entertain, and adds a certain drama to police investigations which otherwise may not have even made the papers. What’s more, when police raid an office, it usually means somebody rich is about to get arrested. And who doesn’t want to see that?

1. The FBI’s Office Raiding Of Obama’s Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra

In March 2009, the FBI raided the office of Barack Obama’s ex-technology officer Vivek Kundra as part of their investigation into corruption charges. The investigation was not reportedly aimed at Kundra, although Yusuf Acar, a city technology worker who worked under him, was arrested after police found $70,000 at his home. Ironically, at the time of the raid, Kundra was giving a speech on his ‘new approach to government contracting’.

Nobody actually knows whether he mentioned the helpfulness of all government contracts actually being legitimate in the eyes of US law. You could say that that was the $64,000 question. Or $70,000 for that matter.

2. The Italian Police’s Super-raid On The Cosa Nostra Mafia

In December of 2008, a police team 1,200 strong accompanied by sniffer dogs and helicopters launched a series of predawn home and office raids on suspected mafia chiefs in Sicily and Tuscany. The raids came as part of an attempt to quell the resurfacing of the infamous Cosa Nostra mafia, which suffered what was thought to be an unrecoverable blow in 2006 when its super don / godfather / big boss Bernardo Provenzano was arrested.

However, the Cosa Nostra appeared ready to rear its violent head once more, resulting in these widespread and highly effective police raids, with over 100 suspected mafia members arrested. Surprisingly, no Cosa Nostra members were free to comment, although it was rumoured they were unhappy about the police ‘disrespecting them, and disrespecting their family’. Probably.

3. The Swedish Police Raids On The Pirate Bay’s Office

On the 31st May 2006, Stockholm based torrent website The Pirate Bay was raided by Swedish police as part of an investigation into copyright violations. At least 65 officers raided the offices of what is classified by internet traffic ranker Alexa.com as 120th most popular website in the world, arresting three men and confiscating the sites’ servers.

Three days later, The Pirate Bay was up and running once more, having relocated temporarily to the Netherlands, with a new logo depicting The Pirate Bay ship firing cannonballs through the Hollywood sign. As a result, traffic to the site doubled, and the Swedish police website was brought down several times by TPB users hackers in an online revenge raid of their own.

As recent events proves however, the raid was just the beginning of the police crackdown, as four of The Pirate Bay’s key operators were given a year’s prison sentence and as much as £2.4 million in fines by a Swedish court.

4. The FBI Raid On Rep. Duke Cunningham’s Home & Office

In 2005, aptly named Republican member of the House of Representatives Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham admitted to numerous counts of fraud, including accepting up to $2.4 billion’s worth of bribes.

FBI raids at both his home and his offices uncovered some particularly damning evidence, including a sheet of paper on which ‘Duke’ had actually written a column of million dollar business contracts with the corresponding bribes necessary to secure them alongside. Of course, Cunningham also factored into his calculations the $140,000 he needed to buy a yacht from defence contractor Mitchell Wade in return for $16 million’s worth of contracts.

As part of the FBI investigation, numerous ladies of promiscuous persuasion were interviewed, as Cunningham, it was rumoured, enjoyed donning his pyjamas and entertaining ladies of the night with champagne on this yacht, which he humbly named the ‘Duke-stir’. His parents clearly experienced a moment of foresight when they named him ‘Randy’.

5. The Completely Unnecessary Zimbabwean Opposition Head Office Police Raid

It may come as a surprise to read that Zimbabwean politics are, from time to time, not what one would describe as democratic. So in 2008 when Morgan Tsvangirai had the cheek and audacity to claim that his Movement for Democratic Change party may have actually beaten the charming President Mugabe in the presidential elections, there was worldwide shock when it emerged that the state had not responded all too kindly, raiding the MDC’s head offices. The purpose of these raids seemed rather unclear, although not much seems to make sense in Zimbabwe these days.

As if for good measure, police simultaneously raided a hotel in the capital and arrested two foreign journalists, one of whom worked for the New York Times. And then they wonder why their latest ‘Visit Zimbabwe’ tourism campaign is failing.

6. The Entire Watergate Scandal

It wouldn’t be a list of raids / scandals / high profile arrests if it didn’t include Watergate, the benchmark for all office raids. Back in 1972, it wasn’t actually the police who raided the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in Washington D.C., but five men commissioned to do so by then President Richard Nixon. The office break-in however was merely the opening of the proverbial can of worms, as a sordid tale containing phrases such as ‘political espionage’ and ‘Mexican slush fund’ unfolded in front of the world’s preying eyes, ultimately leading to Nixon’s resignation two years later.

Watergate was much more than a political scandal however, as it fuelled the craze, still popular day, of scandals ending in the word ‘gate’. Think Mugabegate, Piratebaygate, Amywinehousegate, and so on and so forth.

7. The BP / TNK-BP Moscow Office Raid

Russia is a country often criticised by the west, but if there is one thing Russia does well, it’s oil. It’s a symbiotic relationship: Russia needs oil, and oil needs it back. So you have to feel sympathy for the police team who, in May of last year, were given the task of raiding the Moscow offices of BP as well as TNK-BP, BP’s 50% Russian business venture, as part of an investigation into illegal activity and the proposed takeover bid from Russian oil giants Gazprom.

An absolutely thankless task it proved to be, as the investigation, as all good Guy Ritchie movies could have predicted, led to a trail of oil rich Russian billionaires, shady meetings on yachts and poisoned vodka. Or so we like to think.

8. The Sinn Fein Stormont Office Raid (That Collapsed The Power-sharing Government)

You can always rely on the Brits to do things properly. They like sticking to the rules, doing things the right way, and this was evident in the Northern Ireland police force’s raid of Sinn Fein’s Stormont offices in 2002.

It had all the trademarks of a classic office raid. Accusations that someone from within the office had been intercepting mail on a regular basis and passing on photocopies to the IRA and Sinn Fein had to be investigated, and it was simply crying out for a good police raid. Any excuse to kick a few doors down and break out the tear gas!