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 this lookout post, Costa was in a position to determine better than the men below whether conditions inside the building were favorable to the robbers. This was a question which preyed heavily upon their minds. A detailed search for additional weapons was made at the Mystic River. Released to McKean County, Pennsylvania, authorities early in January 1954 to stand trial for burglary, larceny, and receiving stolen goods, OKeefe also was confronted with a detainer filed by Massachusetts authorities. During his brief stay in Boston, he was observed to contact other members of the robbery gang. On October 20, 1981, a Brinks Company armored car was robbed of $1,589,000 in cash that it was preparing to transfer from the Nanuet National Bank in Clarkstown, N.Y. One of the guards of the. 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. After completing its hearings on January 9, 1953, the grand jury retired to weigh the evidence. Considerable thought was given to every detail. Three of the newspapers used to wrap the bills were identified. Until the FBI and its partners painstakingly solved the case. All efforts to identify the persons responsible for the theft and the persons who had cut up the truck were unsuccessful. Underworld rumors alleged that Maffie and Henry Baker were high on OKeefes list because they had beaten him out of a large amount of money. Even fearing the new bills might be linked with the crime, McGinnis suggested a process for aging the new money in a hurry.. Nonetheless, the finding of the truck parts at Stoughton, Massachusetts, was to prove a valuable break in the investigation. On June 12, 1950, they were arrested at Towanda, Pennsylvania, and guns and clothing that were the loot from burglaries at Kane and Coudersport, Pennsylvania, were found in their possession. He claimed he had been drinking in various taverns from approximately 5:10 p.m. until 7:45 p.m. McGinnis had been arrested at the site of a still in New Hampshire in February 1954. 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. Banfield, the driver, was alone in the front. In the end, the perfect crime had a perfect endingfor everyone but the robbers. The conviction for burglary in McKean County, Pennsylvania, still hung over his head, and legal fees remained to be paid. At the Prison Colony, Baker was serving two concurrent terms of four to ten years, imposed in 1944 for breaking and entering and larceny and for possession of burglar tools. At the time of Bakers release in 1949, Pino was on hand to drive him back to Boston. Terry Perkins celebrated his 67th birthday on the weekend of the Hatton Garden job, exactly 32 years after he'd taken part in another gigantic Easter raid: the 6 million armed robbery of a London security depot. Almost immediately, the gang began laying new plans. Despite the arrests and indictments in January 1956, more than $2,775,000, including $1,218,211.29 in cash, was still missing. From their prison cells, they carefully followed the legal maneuvers aimed at gaining them freedom. How much money was stolen in the Brinks robbery? OKeefe was bitter about a number of matters. He was not involved in the Brinks robbery. The Boston hoodlum told FBI agents in Baltimore that he accepted six of the packages of money from Fat John. The following day (June 2, 1956), he left Massachusetts with $4,750 of these bills and began passing them. Examination by the FBI Laboratory subsequently disclosed that the decomposition, discoloration, and matting together of the bills were due, at least in part, to the fact that all of the bills had been wet. As long as he was in prison, he could do no physical harm to his Boston criminal associates. It ultimately proved unproductive. The Brinks Job, 1950. Many tips were received from anonymous persons. 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. OKeefe had left his hotel at approximately 7:00 p.m. Pino and Baker separately decided to go out at 7:00 p.m. Costa started back to the motor terminal at about 7:00 p.m. Other principal suspects were not able to provide very convincing accounts of their activities that evening. Two hours later he was dead. Despite the lack of evidence and witnesses upon which court proceedings could be based, as the investigation progressed there was little doubt that OKeefe had been one of the central figures in the Brinks robbery. On February 5, 1950, however, a police officer in Somerville, Massachusetts, recovered one of the four revolvers that had been taken by the robbers. The discovery of this money in the Tremont Street offices resulted in the arrests of both Fat John and the business associate of the criminal who had been arrested in Baltimore. Six members of the gangBaker, Costa, Geagan, Maffie, McGinnis, and Pinowere arrested by FBI agents on January 12, 1956. 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. Some persons claimed to have seen him. On January 13, 1956, the Suffolk County grand jury returned indictments against the 11 members of the Brinks gang. 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. All were guilty. 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. On the evening of January 17, 1950, employees of the security firm Brinks, Inc., in Boston, Massachusetts, were closing for the day, returning sacks of undelivered cash, checks, and other material to the company safe on the second floor. (McGinnis trial in March 1955 on the liquor charge resulted in a sentence to 30 days imprisonment and a fine of $1,000. If Baker heard these rumors, he did not wait around very long to see whether they were true. A 32-year-old Cuban immigrant living in Miami, Karls Monzon was . Even Pino, whose deportation troubles then were a heavy burden, was arrested by the Boston police in August 1954. This man, subsequently identified as a small-time Boston underworld figure, was located and questioned. More than $7 million was stolen in a brazen holdup at a Brink's armored car service in Rochester in 1993. They had brought no tools with them, however, and they were unsuccessful. 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. The $2.775 million ($31.3 million today) theft consisted of $1,218,211.29 in cash and $1,557,183.83 in checks, money orders, and other securities. Other information provided by OKeefe helped to fill the gaps which still existed. While OKeefe and Gusciora lingered in jail in Pennsylvania, Pino encountered difficulties of his own. At the outset, very few facts were available to the investigators. When OKeefe admitted his part in the Brinks robbery to FBI agents in January 1956, he told of his high regard for Gusciora. Costa was associated with Pino in the operation of a motor terminal and a lottery in Boston. Mutulu Shakur, born Jeral Wayne Williams, is serving a 60-year sentence for organizing multiple bank and armored car robberies in New York and Connecticut. During these approaches, Costaequipped with a flashlight for signaling the other men was stationed on the roof of a tenement building on Prince Street overlooking Brinks. Well-known Boston hoodlums were picked up and questioned by police. The incident happened outside of a Chase Bank in . This cooler contained more than $57,700, including $51,906 which was identifiable as part of the Brinks loot. After weighing the arguments presented by the attorneys for the eight convicted criminals, the State Supreme Court turned down the appeals on July 1, 1959, in a 35-page decision written by the Chief Justice. Both had served prison sentences, and both were well known to underworld figures on the East Coast. The full details of this important development were immediately furnished to the FBI Office in Boston. The casing operation was so thorough that the criminals could determine the type of activity taking place in the Brinks offices by observing the lights inside the building, and they knew the number of personnel on duty at various hours of the day. The amusement arcade operator told the officer that he had followed the man who passed this $10.00 bill to a nearby tavern. None proved fruitful. An automobile identified as the car used in the escape was located near a Boston hospital, and police officers concealed themselves in the area. A few months prior to the robbery, OKeefe and Gusciora surreptitiously entered the premises of a protective alarm company in Boston and obtained a copy of the protective plans for the Brinks building. The pardon meant that his record no longer contained the second conviction; thus, the Immigration and Naturalization Service no longer had grounds to deport him. BY The Associated Press. Shortly thereafterduring the first week of Novembera 1949 green Ford stake-body truck was reported missing by a car dealer in Boston. Except for $5,000 that he took before placing the loot in Maffies care, OKeefe angrily stated, he was never to see his share of the Brinks money again. Two days before Maffies release, another strong suspect died of natural causes. During the trip from Roxbury, Pino distributed Navy-type peacoats and chauffeurs caps to the other seven men in the rear of the truck. On June 5 and June 7, the Suffolk County grand jury returned indictments against the three mencharging them with several state offenses involving their possessing money obtained in the Brinks robbery. In April 1950, the FBI received information indicating that part of the Brinks loot was hidden in the home of a relative of OKeefe in Boston. Between 1950 and 1954, the underworld occasionally rumbled with rumors that pressure was being exerted upon Boston hoodlums to contribute money for these criminals legal fight against the charges in Pennsylvania. 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. 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. The record of the state trial covered more than 5,300 pages. You get me released, and Ill solve the case in no time, these criminals would claim. 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. There were recurring rumors that this hoodlum, Joseph Sylvester Banfield (pictured), had been right down there on the night of the crime. On November 26, 1981, six armed men from South London broke into the Brink's-Mat warehouse near London Heathrow. In examining the bill, a Federal Reserve note, the officer observed that it was in musty condition. Investigation revealed that Geagan, a laborer, had not gone to work on January 17 or 18, 1950.). 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. Well-meaning persons throughout the country began sending the FBI tips and theories which they hoped would assist in the investigation. Serious consideration originally had been given to robbing Brinks in 1947, when Brinks was located on Federal Street in Boston. Even before Brinks, Incorporated, offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the persons responsible, the case had captured the imagination of millions of Americans. The hideout also was found to contain more than $5,000 in coins. He had been released on parole from the Norfolk, Massachusetts, Prison Colony on August 22, 1949only five months before the robbery. Some of the jewelry might. He arrived in Baltimore on the morning of June 3 and was picked up by the Baltimore Police Department that evening. The new proceedings were based upon the fact that Pino had been arrested in December 1948 for a larceny involving less than $100. The month preceding January 17, 1950, witnessed approximately a half-dozen approaches to Brinks. OKeefe had no place to keep so large a sum of money. 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. Even if released, he thought, his days were numbered. It unleashed a trail of eight murders and a global hunt for. The truck found at the dump had been reported stolen by a Ford dealer near Fenway Park in Boston on November 3, 1949. 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 It was positively concluded that the packages of currency had been damaged prior to the time they were wrapped in the pieces of newspaper; and there were indications that the bills previously had been in a canvas container which was buried in ground consisting of sand and ashes. Before fleeing with the bags of loot, the seven armed men attempted to open a metal box containing the payroll of the General Electric Company. Police recovered only $58,000 of the $2.7 million stolen. Through the interviews of persons in the vicinity of the Brinks offices on the evening of January 17, 1950, the FBI learned that a 1949 green Ford stake-body truck with a canvas top had been parked near the Prince Street door of Brinks at approximately the time of the robbery. Underworld figures in Boston have generally speculated that the racketeer was killed because of his association with OKeefe. They put the entire $200,000 in the trunk of OKeefes automobile. All of them wore Navy-type peacoats, gloves, and chauffeurs caps. 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. On November, 26, 1983, three tonnes of solid gold bullion was taken by six armed robbers from the Brink's-Mat security depot near Heathrow Airport. During this operation, one of the employees had lost his glasses; they later could not be found on the Brinks premises. On April 11, 1955, the Supreme Court ruled that Pinos conviction in 1948 for larceny (the sentence that was revoked and the case placed on file) had not attained such finality as to support an order of deportation. Thus, Pino could not be deported. After careful checking, the FBI eliminated eight of the suspects. Any doubts that the Brinks gang had that the FBI was on the right track in its investigation were allayed when the federal grand jury began hearings in Boston on November 25, 1952, concerning this crime. This occurred while he was in the state prison at Charlestown, Massachusetts, serving sentences for breaking and entering with intent to commit a felony and for having burglar tools in his possession. The Brink Mat robbery was a heist that occurred at Heathrow International Trading Estate on November 26, 1983, when six armed robbers broke into a warehouse run by a US and British joint venture, Brink's Mat. Before removing the remainder of the loot from the house on January 18, 1950, the gang members attempted to identify incriminating items. At that time, Pino approached OKeefe and asked if he wanted to be in on the score. His close associate, Stanley Gusciora, had previously been recruited, and OKeefe agreed to take part. Ten of the persons who appeared before this grand jury breathed much more easily when they learned that no indictments had been returned. 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. Another week passedand approximately 500 more citizens were consideredbefore the 14-member jury was assembled. The group were led . In the years following a shared event, like an assassination, everyone remembers where they were when it happened. Shortly before 7:30 p.m., they were surprised by five menheavily disguised, quiet as mice, wearing gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints and soft shoes to muffle noise. Perhaps most remarkable, its mastermind didn't even have a criminal record when he planned it out. Richardson had participated with Faherty in an armed robbery in February 1934. With the death of Gusciora, only eight members of the Brinks gang remained to be tried. The alibi was strong, but not conclusive. This underworld character told the officers that he had found this money. On September 8, 1950, OKeefe was sentenced to three years in the Bradford County jail at Towanda and fined $3,000 for violation of the Uniform Firearms Act. To his neighbors in Jackson Heights in the early 1990s, Sam . A few years before the Brink's-Mat robbery . Since he claimed to have met no one and to have stopped nowhere during his walk, he actually could have been doing anything on the night of the crime. "A search warrant was executed in Boston covering the Tremont Street offices occupied by the three men" (FBI). The robbery saw six armed men break into a security depot near London . Three and one-half hours later, the verdict had been reached. As the robbers sped from the scene, a Brinks employee telephoned the Boston Police Department. This chauffeurs cap was left at the scene of the crime of the centurythe 1950 robbery of a Brink's bank branch in Massachusetts. Before the robbers could take him prisoner, the garage attendant walked away. This man claimed to have no knowledge of Pinos involvement in the Brinks robbery.). The Brink's-Mat robbery remains to this day one of Britain's biggest and most audacious heists. As this bag was being emptied later that evening, the glasses were discovered and destroyed by the gang. Inside this container were packages of bills that had been wrapped in plastic and newspapers. LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Jewelry, gems, high-end watches and other valuables worth millions of dollars were stolen from a transport vehicle in Southern California. Underworld sources described him as fully capable of planning and executing the Brinks robbery. On November 26, 1981, six armed men from South London broke into the Brink's-Mat warehouse near London Heathrow. The Brinks Mat Robbery: The real story that inspired The Gold. Pino also was linked with the robbery, and there was every reason to suspect that OKeefe felt Pino was turning his back on him now that OKeefe was in jail. Other members of the robbery gang also were having their troubles. Others fell apart as they were handled. (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. A t the time, the Brink's-Mat vault was thought to be one of the most secure facilities in the world. During this operation, a pair of glasses belonging to one of the employees was unconsciously scooped up with other items and stuffed into a bag of loot. He had been convicted of armed robbery in 1940 and served several months in the Massachusetts State Reformatory and the Norfolk, Massachusetts, Prison Colony. What happened to the other half of the Brink's-Mat gold? Extensive efforts were made to detect pencil markings and other notations on the currency that the criminals thought might be traceable to Brinks. The Gold: The Inside Story will hear from the . Pino had been questioned as to his whereabouts on the evening of January 17, 1950, and he provided a good alibi. Officials said the incident happened at a Wendy's in a strip mall at 87th and Lafayette, right off the Dan Ryan Expressway. Police who arrived to investigate found a large amount of blood, a mans shattered wrist watch, and a .45 caliber pistol at the scene. In a report which was released on January 16, 1953, the grand jury disclosed that its members did not feel they possessed complete, positive information as to the identify of the participants in the Brinks robbery because (1) the participants were effectively disguised; (2) there was a lack of eyewitnesses to the crime itself; and (3) certain witnesses refused to give testimony, and the grand jury was unable to compel them to do so. 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. Rumors from the underworld pointed suspicion at several criminal gangs. 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. By this time, Baker was suffering from a bad case of nerves. It was called the crime of the century, the largest heist in US history, an almost perfect robbery. Then, there was the fact that so much dead wood was includedMcGinnis, Banfield, Costa, and Pino were not in the building when the robbery took place. Binoculars were used in this phase of the casing operation. Soon the underworld rang with startling news concerning this pair. But according to the ruling filed in B.C., Brinks paid the money back immediately after the victim bank notified the company that a robbery had occurred making use of "keys, access codes and . He was paroled in the fall of 1944 and remained on parole through March 1954 when misfortune befell him. On June 17, 1954, the Boston police arrested Elmer Trigger Burke and charged him with possession of a machine gun. Brinks customers were contacted for information regarding the packaging and shipping materials they used. Prior to this time, McGinnis had been at his liquor store. He was through with Pino, Baker, McGinnis, Maffie, and the other Brinks conspirators who had turned against him. Because the money in the cooler was in various stages of decomposition, an accurate count proved most difficult to make. This is good money, he said, but you cant pass it around here in Boston.. 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 analysis of the alibis offered by the suspects showed that the hour of 7:00 p.m. on January 17, 1950, was frequently mentioned. FBI.gov is an official site of the U.S. Department of Justice. Occasionally, an offender who was facing a prison term would boast that he had hot information. On this day, Jawarski made history by pulling off the nation's first armored car robbery. During the preceding year, however, he had filed a petition for pardon in the hope of removing one of the criminal convictions from his record. 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. A detective examines the Brinks vault after the theft. In the fall of 1955, an upper court overruled the conviction on the grounds that the search and seizure of the still were illegal.). For the Rockland County community, the Brink's Robbery rises to that historic standard. Early in June 1956, however, an unexpected break developed. Thorough inquiries were made concerning the disposition of the bags after their receipt by the Massachusetts firm. Neither had too convincing an alibi. (A detailed survey of the Boston waterfront previously had been made by the FBI.) Andrew J. Whitaker/Pool/USA Today Network via REUTERSStanding in shackles and a beige prison jumpsuit, the once prominent South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh continued to swear he was innocent Friday as a judge slammed him as a "monster" whose conduct was worse than many offenders who got the death penalty.Judge Clifton Newman sentenced Murdaugh to life in prison for the June 7, 2021 . A lock () or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. They did not expect to find the Aladdin's cave to contain some 26m in gold bullion and diamonds that they stumbled upon. They did not expect to. 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. He was found brutally murdered in his car in 1987. McAvoy had attempted to reach a settlement with prosecutors in the case when he offered to repay his share, but by that time the money was gone. Two other men, ex-Brink's guard Thomas O'Connor and unemployed teacher Charles McCormick, were acquitted.