After nearly being caught on a routine burglary, master safe-cracking Nick Wells decides the time has finally come to retire from his criminal activities. He is enticed into taking one final score by his Fence (criminal) Max. The job, worth a $4 million payoff to Nick, is to steal a sceptre, a French national treasure stored in the ultra-secure basement of the Custom House, Montreal. The sceptre was discovered by Customs agents being smuggled into the US through Canada. Max introduces Nick to Jack Teller, an ambitious thief who has infiltrated the Customs House and gained information regarding security by pretending to be an intellectually disabled janitor.