Armed crooks wearing Halloween masks and chauffeur . Even with the recovery of this money in Baltimore and Boston, more than $1,150,000 of currency taken in the Brinks robbery remained unaccounted for. What happened to the other half of the Brink's-Mat gold? 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. In its determination to overlook no possibility, the FBI contacted various resorts throughout the United States for information concerning persons known to possess unusually large sums of money following the robbery. Perhaps most remarkable, its mastermind didn't even have a criminal record when he planned it out. Shakur, the stepfather of hip-hop star . On January 10, 1953, following his appearance before the federal grand jury in connection with the Brinks case, Pino was taken into custody again as a deportable alien. Pino was determined to fight against deportation. The stolen 6,800 gold ingots, diamonds and cash would be worth 100million today. A roll of waterproof adhesive tape used to gag and bind bank employees that was left at the scene of the crime. Many other types of information were received. It appeared to him that he would spend his remaining days in prison while his co-conspirators would have many years to enjoy the luxuries of life. In the back were Pino, OKeefe, Baker, Faherty, Maffie, Gusciora, Michael Vincent Geagan (pictured), and Thomas Francis Richardson. They did not expect to find the Aladdin's cave to contain some 26m in gold bullion and diamonds that they stumbled upon. Some persons claimed to have seen him. The Great Brinks Robbery was the biggest armed robbery in U.S. history at the time. As of January 1956, more than $2,775,000, including $1,218,211.29 in cash was still unaccounted for. However, the group were shocked to find a massive 26 million in gold . 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 robbers did little talking. Interviews with him on June 3 and 4, 1956, disclosed that this 31-year-old hoodlum had a record of arrests and convictions dating back to his teens and that he had been conditionally released from a federal prison camp less than a year beforehaving served slightly more than two years of a three-year sentence for transporting a falsely made security interstate. You'd be forgiven for mistaking the 2005 Miami Brinks heist for a movie script. The men had thought they were robbing a sum of foreign money, but instead found three tonnes of gold bullion (6,800 ingots), with a value of 26 million back then, around 100 million today. Due to his criminal record, the Immigration and Naturalization Service instituted proceedings in 1941 to deport him. A thorough investigation was made concerning his whereabouts on the evening of January 17, 1950. An appeal was promptly noted, and he was released on $15,000 bond. (McGinnis trial in March 1955 on the liquor charge resulted in a sentence to 30 days imprisonment and a fine of $1,000. Estimates range from $10 million to $100 million. Of the hundreds of New England hoodlums contacted by FBI agents in the weeks immediately following the robbery, few were willing to be interviewed. Pino was known in the underworld as an excellent case man, and it was said that the casing of the Brinks offices bore his trademark.. Apparently, they had planned a leisurely trip with an abundance of extracurricular activities.. Early in June 1956, however, an unexpected break developed. Rumors from the underworld pointed suspicion at several criminal gangs. OKeefe claimed that he left his hotel room in Boston at approximately 7:00 p.m. on January 17, 1950. OKeefes reputation for nerve was legend. Again, he was determined to fight, using the argument that his conviction for the 1948 larceny offense was not a basis for deportation. 00:29. Former inmates of penal institutions reported conversations they had overheard while incarcerated which concerned the robbing of Brinks. Sentenced to serve from five to seven years for this offense, he was released from prison in September 1941. In December 1948, Brinks moved from Federal Street to 165 Prince Street in Boston. The FBI further learned that four revolvers had been taken by the gang. 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.". 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. On January 12, 1953, Pino was released on bail pending a deportation hearing. To his neighbors in Jackson Heights in the early 1990s, Sam . He. In July 1956, another significant turn of events took place. He subsequently was convicted and executed.). Burke, a professional killer, allegedly had been hired by underworld associates of OKeefe to assassinate him. During the regular exercise period, Burke separated himself from the other prisoners and moved toward a heavy steel door leading to the solitary confinement section. The Brinks Job, 1950. The group were led . None proved fruitful. None of these materialized because the gang did not consider the conditions to be favorable. The amusement arcade operator told the officer that he had followed the man who passed this $10.00 bill to a nearby tavern. He was through with Pino, Baker, McGinnis, Maffie, and the other Brinks conspirators who had turned against him. With the death of Gusciora, only eight members of the Brinks gang remained to be tried. One of these officers quickly grabbed the criminals hand, and a large roll of money fell from it. Well-known Boston hoodlums were picked up and questioned by police. While some gang members remained in the building to ensure that no one detected the operation, other members quickly obtained keys to fit the locks. On January 11, 1956, the United States Attorney at Boston authorized special agents of the FBI to file complaints charging the 11 criminals with (1) conspiracy to commit theft of government property, robbery of government property, and bank robbery by force and violence and by intimidation, (2) committing bank robbery on January 17, 1950, and committing an assault on Brinks employees during the taking of the money, and (3) conspiracy to receive and conceal money in violation of the Bank Robbery and Theft of Government Property Statutes. Jewelers report over $100 million in losses after Brinks armored truck robbed in California. He claimed there was a large roll of bills in his hotel roomand that he had found that money, too. The Gold: The Inside Story will hear from the . On August 29, 1954, the officers suspicions were aroused by an automobile that circled the general vicinity of the abandoned car on five occasions. While on bond he returned to Boston; on January 23, 1954, he appeared in the Boston Municipal Court on the probation violation charge. He had been short changed $2,000. Yet, it only amounted to a near perfect crime. Some of the bills were in pieces. At the time of the Brinks robbery, Geagan was on parole, having been released from prison in July 1943, after serving eight years of a lengthy sentence for armed robbery and assault. If Baker heard these rumors, he did not wait around very long to see whether they were true. The other gun was picked up by the officer and identified as having been taken during the Brinks robbery. McGinnis previously had discussed sending a man to the United States Patent Office in Washington, D.C., to inspect the patents on the protective alarms used in the Brinks building. During questioning by the FBI, the money changer stated that he was in business as a mason contractor with another man on Tremont Street in Boston. Faherty and Richardson fled to avoid apprehension and subsequently were placed on the list of the FBIs Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. Pino had been at his home in the Roxbury Section of Boston until approximately 7:00 p.m.; then he walked to the nearby liquor store of Joseph McGinnis. 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. On June 4, 1956 a man named "Fat John" admitted he had money that was linked to the Brink's robbery in his possession. The FBIs jurisdiction to investigate this robbery was based upon the fact that cash, checks, postal notes, and United States money orders of the Federal Reserve Bank and the Veterans Administration district office in Boston were included in the loot. Within two months of his return, another member of the gang suffered a legal setback. When this case was continued until April 1, 1954, OKeefe was released on $1,500 bond. He arrived in Baltimore on the morning of June 3 and was picked up by the Baltimore Police Department that evening. The hoodlum was taken to police headquarters where a search of his person disclosed he was carrying more than $1,000, including $860 in musty, worn bills. Of the $4,822 found in the small-time criminals possession, FBI agents identified $4,635 as money taken by the Brinks robbers. On November 26, 1981, six armed men from South London broke into the Brink's-Mat warehouse near London Heathrow. Subsequently, OKeefe left his carand the $200,000in a garage on Blue Hill Avenue in Boston. Other members of the robbery gang also were having their troubles. The month preceding January 17, 1950, witnessed approximately a half-dozen approaches to Brinks. On November 26, 1982, six armed robbers forced their way into the Brink's-Mat warehouse, the plan was to steal the 3.2m in cash they were expecting to find stored there. 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. The crime inspired at least four movies and two books, including The Story of the Great Brink's Robbery, as Told by the FBI. Had any particles of evidence been found in the loot which might directly show that they had handled it? A gang of 11 men set out on a meticulous 18-month quest to rob the Brinks headquarters in Boston, the home-base of the legendary private security firm. Each of the five lock cylinders was taken on a separate occasion. There are still suspicions among some readers that the late Tom O'Connor, a retired cop who worked Brinks security during the robbery, was a key player, despite his acquittal on robbery charges at . From the size of the loot and the number of men involved, it was logical that the gang might have used a truck. 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. In September 1949, Pinos efforts to evade deportation met with success. The Brinks Mat Robbery: The real story that inspired The Gold. After the truck parts were found, additional suspicion was attached to these men. 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. The alibi, in fact, was almost too good. On this day, Jawarski made history by pulling off the nation's first armored car robbery. The. (The arrests of Faherty and Richardson also resulted in the indictment of another Boston hoodlum as an accessory after the fact). 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. You get me released, and Ill solve the case in no time, these criminals would claim. The Brink's cargo trailer was. The. Three of the remaining five gang members were previously accounted for, OKeefe and Gusciora being in prison on other charges and Banfield being dead. As the robbers sped from the scene, a Brinks employee telephoned the Boston Police Department. (Following pleas of guilty in November 1956, Fat John received a two-year sentence, and the other two men were sentenced to serve one years imprisonment. Micky McAvoy, who masterminded the 1983 robbery of 26million from Brinks-Mat's Heathrow depot, has died aged 70 and never got his hands on the money stolen in the mega-heist A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. At approximately 9:50 p.m., the details of this incident were furnished to the Baltimore Field Office of the FBI. Pierra Willix Monday 13 Feb 2023 8:00 am. I think a fellow just passed a counterfeit $10.00 bill on me, he told the officer. In the end, the perfect crime had a perfect endingfor everyone but the robbers. The following is a brief account of the data which OKeefe provided the special agents in January 1956: Although basically the brain child of Pino, the Brinks robbery was the product of the combined thought and criminal experience of men who had known each other for many years. The hideout also was found to contain more than $5,000 in coins. 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. Police recovered only $58,000 of the $2.7 million stolen. He had been released on parole from the Norfolk, Massachusetts, Prison Colony on August 22, 1949only five months before the robbery. In addition, McGinnis was named in two other complaints involving the receiving and concealing of the loot. The defense immediately filed motions which would delay or prevent the trial. Pino had been questioned as to his whereabouts on the evening of January 17, 1950, and he provided a good alibi. The group had expected to find foreign currency at the security depot but instead happened upon 26 million worth of goods. Despite the fact that substantial amounts of money were being spent by members of the robbery gang during 1954, in defending themselves against legal proceedings alone, the year ended without the location of any bills identifiable as part of the Brinks loot. Following the robbery, authorities attempted unsuccessfully to locate him at the hotel. The mass of information gathered during the early weeks of the investigation was continuously sifted. The Brink's truck was robbed in the early morning . Another week passedand approximately 500 more citizens were consideredbefore the 14-member jury was assembled. Like Gusciora, OKeefe was known to have associated with Pino prior to the Brinks robbery. All efforts to identify the gang members through the chauffeurs hat, the rope, and the adhesive tape which had been left in Brinks proved unsuccessful. Inside the building, the gang members carefully studied all available information concerning Brinks schedules and shipments. He was found brutally murdered in his car in 1987. Each robbers face was completely concealed behind a Halloween-type mask. The recovery of part of the loot was a severe blow to the gang members who still awaited trial in Boston. The other keys in their possession enabled them to proceed to the second floor where they took the five Brinks employees by surprise. Nonetheless, the finding of the truck parts at Stoughton, Massachusetts, was to prove a valuable break in the investigation. FBI investigating $150 million jewelry heist of Brinks truck traveling from San Mateo County to Southern California. It ultimately proved unproductive. OKeefe immediately returned to Boston to await the results of the appeal. In a series of interviews during the succeeding days, OKeefe related the full story of the Brinks robbery. The robbers carefully planned routine inside Brinks was interrupted only when the attendant in the adjoining Brinks garage sounded the buzzer. 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. When the pieces of the 1949 green Ford stake-body truck were found at the dump in Stoughton on March 4, 1950, additional emphasis was placed on the investigations concerning them. After each interview, FBI agents worked feverishly into the night checking all parts of his story which were subject to verification. Two weeks of comparative quiet in the gang members lives were shattered on June 5, 1954, when an attempt was made on OKeefes life. Subsequently, he engaged in a conversation with McGinnis and a Boston police officer. Seven months later, however, he was again paroled. Ten of the persons who appeared before this grand jury breathed much more easily when they learned that no indictments had been returned. Examination revealed the cause of his death to be a brain tumor and acute cerebral edema. Gusciora also claimed to have been drinking that evening. In the hope that a wide breach might have developed between the two criminals who were in jail in Pennsylvania and the gang members who were enjoying the luxuries of a free life in Massachusetts, FBI agents again visited Gusciora and OKeefe. Two of the gang members moved toward the door to capture him; but, seeing the garage attendant walk away apparently unaware that the robbery was being committed, they did not pursue him. As a protective measure, he was incarcerated in the Hampden County jail at Springfield, Massachusetts, rather than the Suffolk County jail in Boston. When OKeefe admitted his part in the Brinks robbery to FBI agents in January 1956, he told of his high regard for Gusciora. 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.). Pino would take the locks to the mans shop, and keys would be made for them. On June 2, 1950, OKeefe and Gusciora left Boston by automobile for the alleged purpose of visiting the grave of Guscioras brother in Missouri. 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.
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