On August 29, 1954, the officers suspicions were aroused by an automobile that circled the general vicinity of the abandoned car on five occasions. Perkins was handed a 22-year jail sentence for that one, but absconded from open prison in 1995 and managed to . Adolph Maffie, who had been convicted of income tax violation in June 1954, was released from the Federal Corrections Institution at Danbury, Connecticut, on January 30, 1955. None proved fruitful. Many of the details had previously been obtained during the intense six-year investigation. Each carried a pair of gloves. Instead, they found three tonnes of gold bullion. An immediate effort also was made to obtain descriptive data concerning the missing cash and securities. Local officers searched their homes, but no evidence linking them with the truck or the robbery was found. And the gang felt that the chances of his talking were negligible because he would be implicated in the Brinks robbery along with the others. At approximately 7:30 p.m. on June 3, 1956, an officer of the Baltimore, Maryland, Police Department was approached by the operator of an amusement arcade. The FBIs analysis of the alibis offered by the suspects showed that the hour of 7:00 p.m. on January 17, 1950, was frequently mentioned. On January 12, 1953, Pino was released on bail pending a deportation hearing. Again, he was determined to fight, using the argument that his conviction for the 1948 larceny offense was not a basis for deportation. In the fall of 1955, an upper court overruled the conviction on the grounds that the search and seizure of the still were illegal.). Both men remained mute following their arrests. Pino admitted having been in the area, claiming that he was looking for a parking place so that he could visit a relative in the hospital. He was so cold and persistent in these dealings with his co-conspirators that the agents hoped he might be attempting to obtain a large sum of moneyperhaps his share of the Brinks loot. The families of OKeefe and Gusciora resided in the vicinity of Stoughton, Massachusetts. (Burke was arrested by FBI agents at Folly Beach, South Carolina, on August 27, 1955, and he returned to New York to face murder charges which were outstanding against him there. "A search warrant was executed in Boston covering the Tremont Street offices occupied by the three men" (FBI). He was through with Pino, Baker, McGinnis, Maffie, and the other Brinks conspirators who had turned against him. OKeefe was enraged that the pieces of the stolen Ford truck had been placed on the dump near his home, and he generally regretted having become associated at all with several members of the gang. Before removing the remainder of the loot from the house on January 18, 1950, the gang members attempted to identify incriminating items. On June 19, 1958, while out on appeal in connection with a five-year narcotics sentence, he was found shot to death in an automobile that had crashed into a truck in Boston.). You get me released, and Ill solve the case in no time, these criminals would claim. Two died before they were tried. On November 26, 1981, six armed men from South London broke into the Brink's-Mat warehouse near London Heathrow. After continuing up the street to the end of the playground which adjoined the Brinks building, the truck stopped. (The arrests of Faherty and Richardson also resulted in the indictment of another Boston hoodlum as an accessory after the fact). On the afternoon of August 28, 1954, Trigger Burke escaped from the Suffolk County jail in Boston, where he was being held on the gun-possession charge arising from the June 16 shooting of OKeefe. Minutes later, police arrived at the Brinks building, and special agents of the FBI quickly joined in the investigation. If passing police had looked closer early that Saturday morning on November 26, 1983, they would have noticed the van was weighted down below its wheel arches with three tons of gold. David Ghantt was the vault supervisor for Loomis, Fargo & Co. armored cars, which managed the transportation of large sums of cash between banks in North Carolina. He was not able to provide a specific account, claiming that he became drunk on New Years Eve and remained intoxicated through the entire month of January. He. Another old gang that had specialized in hijacking bootlegged whiskey in the Boston area during Prohibition became the subject of inquiries. Richardson had participated with Faherty in an armed robbery in February 1934. Almost immediately, the gang began laying new plans. Both of these strong-arm suspects had been questioned by Boston authorities following the robbery. From interviews with the five employees whom the criminals had confronted, it was learned that between five and seven robbers had entered the building. He advised that he and his associate shared office space with an individual known to him only as Fat John. According to the Boston hoodlum, on the night of June 1, 1956, Fat John asked him to rip a panel from a section of the wall in the office, and when the panel was removed, Fat John reached into the opening and removed the cover from a metal container. Race tracks and gambling establishments also were covered in the hope of finding some of the loot in circulation. This was in their favor. On this day, Jawarski made history by pulling off the nation's first armored car robbery. Each robbers face was completely concealed behind a Halloween-type mask. Despite the arrests and indictments in January 1956, more than $2,775,000, including $1,218,211.29 in cash, was still missing. Members of the Purple Gang of the 1930s found that there was renewed interest in their activities. A man of modest means in Bayonne, New Jersey, was reported to be spending large sums of money in night clubs, buying new automobiles, and otherwise exhibiting newly found wealth. 26 million (equivalent to 93.3 million in 2021 [1]) worth of gold bullion, diamonds, and cash was stolen from a warehouse operated by Brink's-Mat, a former joint . Before his trial in McKean County, he was released on $17,000 bond. An appeal was promptly noted, and he was released on $15,000 bond. Adding to these problems was the constant pressure being exerted upon Pino by OKeefe from the county jail in Towanda, Pennsylvania. Neither had too convincing an alibi. The month preceding January 17, 1950, witnessed approximately a half-dozen approaches to Brinks. He needed money for his defense against the charges in McKean County, and it was obvious that he had developed a bitter attitude toward a number of his close underworld associates. Shortly thereafterduring the first week of Novembera 1949 green Ford stake-body truck was reported missing by a car dealer in Boston. Continuous investigation, however, had linked him with the gang. Burlap money bags recovered in a Boston junk yard from the robbery, Some of the recovered money from the robbery. Pino would take the locks to the mans shop, and keys would be made for them. Much of the money taken from the money changer appeared to have been stored a long time. Two of the participants in the Brinks robbery lived in the Stoughton area. Before they left, however, approximately $380,000 was placed in a coal hamper and removed by Baker for security reasons. The Great Brinks Robbery was the biggest armed robbery in U.S. history at the time. The fiber bags used to conceal the pieces were identified as having been used as containers for beef bones shipped from South America to a gelatin manufacturing company in Massachusetts. The robbers carefully planned routine inside Brinks was interrupted only when the attendant in the adjoining Brinks garage sounded the buzzer. Before the robbery was committed, the participants had agreed that if anyone muffed, he would be taken care of. OKeefe felt that most of the gang members had muffed. Talking to the FBI was his way of taking care of them all. The defense immediately filed motions which would delay or prevent the trial. In the years following a shared event, like an assassination, everyone remembers where they were when it happened. OKeefe had no place to keep so large a sum of money. The robbery. One of the biggest robberies in U.S. history happened here. They stole 26 million in gold bullion - the biggest robbery of . Neither Pino nor McGinnis was known to be the type of hoodlum who would undertake so potentially dangerous a crime without the best strong-arm support available. Thus, when he and Gusciora were taken into custody by state authorities during the latter part of January 1950, OKeefe got word to McGinnis to recover his car and the $200,000 that it contained. The other keys in their possession enabled them to proceed to the second floor where they took the five Brinks employees by surprise. Perhaps most remarkable, its mastermind didn't even have a criminal record when he planned it out. The criminal explained that he was in the contracting business in Boston and that in late March or early April 1956, he stumbled upon a plastic bag containing this money while he was working on the foundation of a house. The truck found at the dump had been reported stolen by a Ford dealer near Fenway Park in Boston on November 3, 1949. BOSTON Friday, Jan. 17, 2020 marks 70 years since a group of armed and masked men stole millions of dollars from an armored car depot in the North End in what the FBI still calls "the crime of the century.". A Secret Service agent, who had been summoned by the Baltimore officers, arrived while the criminal was being questioned at the police headquarters, and after examining the money found in the bill changers possession, he certified that it was not counterfeit. What happened in the Brink's-Mat robbery? Costa was associated with Pino in the operation of a motor terminal and a lottery in Boston. All had been published in Boston between December 4, 1955, and February 21, 1956. He received a one-year sentence for this offense; however, on January 30, 1950, the sentence was revoked and the case was placed on file.. OKeefe was sentenced on August 5, 1954, to serve 27 months in prison. Serious consideration originally had been given to robbing Brinks in 1947, when Brinks was located on Federal Street in Boston. The last false approach took place on January 16, 1950the night before the robbery. (Investigation to substantiate this information resulted in the location of the proprietor of a key shop who recalled making keys for Pino on at least four or five evenings in the fall of 1949. A t the time, the Brink's-Mat vault was thought to be one of the most secure facilities in the world. OKeefe did not know where the gang members had hidden their shares of the lootor where they had disposed of the money if, in fact, they had disposed of their shares. The Brink's-Mat robbery remains to this day one of Britain's biggest and most audacious heists. On November 26, 1981, six armed men from South London broke into the Brink's-Mat warehouse near London Heathrow. Information received from this individual linked nine well-known hoodlums with the crime. Those killed in the. Commonly regarded as a dominant figure in the Boston underworld, McGinnis previously had been convicted of robbery and narcotics violations. He was paroled in the fall of 1944 and remained on parole through March 1954 when misfortune befell him. In the succeeding two weeks, nearly 1,200 prospective jurors were eliminated as the defense counsel used their 262 peremptory challenges. Somehow the criminals had opened at least threeand possibly fourlocked doors to gain entrance to the second floor of Brinks, where the five employees were engaged in their nightly chore of checking and storing the money collected from Brinks customers that day. The Gold is a 2023 television series created for BBC One and Paramount+. When this case was continued until April 1, 1954, OKeefe was released on $1,500 bond. A second shooting incident occurred on the morning of June 14, 1954, in Dorchester, Massachusetts, when OKeefe and his racketeer friend paid a visit to Baker. Their success in evading arrest ended abruptly on May 16, 1956, when FBI agents raided the apartment in which they were hiding in Dorchester, Massachusetts. The alibi, in fact, was almost too good. A third attempt on OKeefes life was made on June 16, 1954. After surrendering himself in December 1953 in compliance with an Immigration and Naturalization Service order, he began an additional battle to win release from custody while his case was being argued. Accordingly, another lock cylinder was installed until the original one was returned. Pino, Richardson, and Costa each took $20,000, and this was noted on a score sheet. Estimates range from $10 million to $100 million. Although he had been known to carry a gun, burglaryrather than armed robberywas his criminal specialty, and his exceptional driving skill was an invaluable asset during criminal getaways. Of the $4,822 found in the small-time criminals possession, FBI agents identified $4,635 as money taken by the Brinks robbers. Police recovered only $58,000 of the $2.7 million stolen. This vehicle was traced through motor vehicle records to Pino. On the night of January 17, 1952exactly two years after the crime occurredthe FBIs Boston Office received an anonymous telephone call from an individual who claimed he was sending a letter identifying the Brinks robbers. Henry Baker, another veteran criminal who was rumored to be kicking in to the Pennsylvania defense fund, had spent a number of years of his adult life in prison. This phase of the investigation was pursued exhaustively. On January 13, 1956, the Suffolk County grand jury returned indictments against the 11 members of the Brinks gang. Two hours later he was dead. He arrived in Baltimore on the morning of June 3 and was picked up by the Baltimore Police Department that evening. As of January 1956, more than $2,775,000, including $1,218,211.29 in cash was still unaccounted for. And it nearly was. All denied any knowledge of the alleged incident. The serial numbers of several of these bills were furnished to the FBI Office in Baltimore. A 32-year-old Cuban immigrant living in Miami, Karls Monzon was . He was found brutally murdered in his car in 1987. When questioned concerning his activities on the night of January 17, 1950, Richardson claimed that after unsuccessfully looking for work he had several drinks and then returned home. Pino, Costa, Maffie, Geagan, Faherty, Richardson, and Baker received life sentences for robbery, two-year sentences for conspiracy to steal, and sentences of eight years to ten years for breaking and entering at night. As a government witness, he reluctantly would have testified against him. 00:29. The loot was quickly unloaded, and Banfield sped away to hide the truck. (Geagan and Richardson, known associates of other members of the gang, were among the early suspects. Even if released, he thought, his days were numbered. This man subsequently identified locks from doors which the Brinks gang had entered as being similar to the locks which Pino had brought him. Geagan claimed that he spent the evening at home and did not learn of the Brinks robbery until the following day. On October 20, 1981, members of the Black Liberation Army robbed a Brink's truck at the Nanuet Mall. The descriptions and serial numbers of these weapons were carefully noted since they might prove a valuable link to the men responsible for the crime. Many tips were received from anonymous persons. Later, when he counted the money, he found that the suitcase contained $98,000. Investigation established that this gun, together with another rusty revolver, had been found on February 4, 1950, by a group of boys who were playing on a sand bar at the edge of the Mystic River in Somerville. After nearly three years of investigation, the government hoped that witnesses or participants who had remained mute for so long a period of time might find their tongues before the grand jury. The. One of these officers quickly grabbed the criminals hand, and a large roll of money fell from it. One Massachusetts racketeer, a man whose moral code mirrored his long years in the underworld, confided to the agents who were interviewing him, If I knew who pulled the job, I wouldnt be talking to you now because Id be too busy trying to figure a way to lay my hands on some of the loot.. The most important of these, Specs OKeefe, carefully recited the details of the crime, clearly spelling out the role played by each of the eight defendants. The Brinks Mat Robbery: The real story that inspired The Gold. All five employees had been forced at gunpoint to lie face down on the floor. Thorough inquiries were made concerning the disposition of the bags after their receipt by the Massachusetts firm. What Happened To The Brinks Mat Robbery? However, the group were shocked to find a massive 26 million in gold . In December 1954, he indicated to the agents that Pino could look for rough treatment if he (OKeefe) again was released. In addition to mold, insect remains also were found on the loot. Each of them had surreptitiously entered the premises on several occasions after the employees had left for the day. Reports had been received alleging that he had held up several gamblers in the Boston area and had been involved in shakedowns of bookies.
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