what happened to the money from the brinks robbery
On June 2, 1950, OKeefe and Gusciora left Boston by automobile for the alleged purpose of visiting the grave of Guscioras brother in Missouri. During this operation, one of the employees had lost his glasses; they later could not be found on the Brinks premises. FBI.gov is an official site of the U.S. Department of Justice. While Maffie claimed that part of the money had been stolen from its hiding place and that the remainder had been spent in financing OKeefes legal defense in Pennsylvania, other gang members accused Maffie of blowing the money OKeefe had entrusted to his care. Stanley Gusciora (pictured left), who had been transferred to Massachusetts from Pennsylvania to stand trial, was placed under medical care due to weakness, dizziness, and vomiting. 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. OKeefe paid his respects to other members of the Brinks gang in Boston on several occasions in the spring of 1954, and it was obvious to the agents handling the investigation that he was trying to solicit money. 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. 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. Those killed in the. That same afternoon (following the admission that Fat John had produced the money and had described it as proceeds from the Brinks robbery), a search warrant was executed in Boston covering the Tremont Street offices occupied by the three men. It was reported that on May 18, 1954, OKeefe and his racketeer associate took Vincent Costa to a hotel room and held him for several thousand dollars ransom. Both of these strong-arm suspects had been questioned by Boston authorities following the robbery. At 6:30am, six armed robbers from a south London gang entered the premises of the Brink's-Mat warehouse at Heathrow. From the size of the loot and the number of men involved, it was logical that the gang might have used a truck. Underworld figures in Boston have generally speculated that the racketeer was killed because of his association with OKeefe. Yet, it only amounted to a near perfect crime. 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. Much of the money taken from the money changer appeared to have been stored a long time. When OKeefe admitted his part in the Brinks robbery to FBI agents in January 1956, he told of his high regard for Gusciora. Banfield had been a close associate of McGinnis for many years. A new BBC crime drama series follows the gripping twists and turns of what was dubbed the "crime of the century" in the 1980s. The group were led by Mickey McAdams and Brian Robinson who planned to find 3 million in cash. Adding to these problems was the constant pressure being exerted upon Pino by OKeefe from the county jail in Towanda, Pennsylvania. 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. Todd Williamson/Getty Images David Ghantt attends the 2016 after party for the Hollywood premiere of Masterminds, based on the Loomis Fargo heist that he helped carry out. He had been released on parole from the Norfolk, Massachusetts, Prison Colony on August 22, 1949only five months before the robbery. Among the early suspects was Anthony Pino, an alien who had been a principal suspect in numerous major robberies and burglaries in Massachusetts. On November 26, 1981, six armed men from South London broke into the Brink's-Mat warehouse near London Heathrow. 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. While OKeefe and Gusciora lingered in jail in Pennsylvania, Pino encountered difficulties of his own. None of these materialized because the gang did not consider the conditions to be favorable. The families of OKeefe and Gusciora resided in the vicinity of Stoughton, Massachusetts. Some of the jewelry might. 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. 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 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. Evidently resigned to long years in prison or a short life on the outside, OKeefe grew increasingly bitter toward his old associates. Perkins was handed a 22-year jail sentence for that one, but absconded from open prison in 1995 and managed to . At approximately 9:50 p.m., the details of this incident were furnished to the Baltimore Field Office of the FBI. 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. He ran a gold and jewellery dealing company, Scadlynn Ltd, in Bristol with business partners Garth Victor Chappell and Terence Edward James Patch. 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. He was not with the gang when the robbery took place. During their forays inside the building, members of the gang took the lock cylinders from five doors, including the one opening onto Prince Street. A systematic check of current and past Brinks employees was undertaken; personnel of the three-story building housing the Brinks offices were questioned; inquiries were made concerning salesmen, messengers, and others who had called at Brinks and might know its physical layout as well as its operational procedures. 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 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 FBI also succeeded in locating the carpenter who had remodeled the offices where the loot was hidden. He was not involved in the Brinks robbery. All efforts to identify the persons responsible for the theft and the persons who had cut up the truck were unsuccessful. T he robbers were there because they knew there was 3 million in cash locked in the . Former inmates of penal institutions reported conversations they had overheard while incarcerated which concerned the robbing of Brinks. Micky McAvoy, believed by police to be the mastermind behind the robbery, was arrested ten days after the robbery. The other gun was picked up by the officer and identified as having been taken during the Brinks robbery. 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. It was almost the perfect crime. California thieves pulled off a heist straight out of "Ocean's 11'' swiping up to $150 million in jewels from a Brink's armored truck as it drove from one convention show to . Although Gusciora was acquitted of the charges against him in Towanda, he was removed to McKean County, Pennsylvania, to stand trial for burglary, larceny, and receiving stolen goods. In December 1954, he indicated to the agents that Pino could look for rough treatment if he (OKeefe) again was released. As the loot was being placed in bags and stacked between the second and third doors leading to the Prince Street entrance, a buzzer sounded. On August 1, 1954, he was arrested at Leicester, Massachusetts, and turned over to the Boston police who held him for violating probation on a gun-carrying charge. Sentenced to serve from five to seven years for this offense, he was released from prison in September 1941. Baker fled and the brief meeting adjourned. He was paroled in the fall of 1944 and remained on parole through March 1954 when misfortune befell him. What happened to the other half of the Brink's-Mat gold? Like Gusciora, OKeefe was known to have associated with Pino prior to the Brinks robbery. On this day, Jawarski made history by pulling off the nation's first armored car robbery. 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. Their hands were tied behind their backs and adhesive tape was placed over their mouths. Neither had too convincing an alibi. Three years later, almost to the day, these ten men, together with another criminal, were to be indicted by a state grand jury in Boston for the Brinks robbery. 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. He had been convicted of armed robbery in 1940 and served several months in the Massachusetts State Reformatory and the Norfolk, Massachusetts, Prison Colony. 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. On November, 26, 1983, three tonnes of solid gold bullion was taken by six armed robbers from the Brink's-Mat security depot near . Richardson had participated with Faherty in an armed robbery in February 1934. For the Rockland County community, the Brink's Robbery rises to that historic standard. All of them wore Navy-type peacoats, gloves, and chauffeurs caps. During the period in which Pinos deportation troubles were mounting, OKeefe completed his sentence at Towanda, Pennsylvania. 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. And it nearly was. (Costa, who was at his lookout post, previously had arrived in a Ford sedan which the gang had stolen from behind the Boston Symphony Hall two days earlier.). The ninth man had long been a principal suspect. (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. Years earlier, a private investigator, Daniel Morgan, was said to have been looking into the robbery. It was used by the defense counsel in preparing a 294-page brief that was presented to the Massachusetts State Supreme Court. After each interview, FBI agents worked feverishly into the night checking all parts of his story which were subject to verification. 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. They put the entire $200,000 in the trunk of OKeefes automobile. On February 5, 1950, however, a police officer in Somerville, Massachusetts, recovered one of the four revolvers that had been taken by the robbers. There had been three attempts on his life in June 1954, and his frustrated assassins undoubtedly were waiting for him to return to Boston. He told the interviewing agents that he trusted Maffie so implicitly that he gave the money to him for safe keeping. Veteran criminals throughout the United States found their activities during mid-January the subject of official inquiry. Each of them had surreptitiously entered the premises on several occasions after the employees had left for the day. Three years later, Great Train Robber. The incident happened outside of a Chase Bank in . On November, 26, 1983, three tonnes of solid gold bullion was taken by six armed robbers from the Brink's-Mat security depot near . This incident also took place in Dorchester and involved the firing of more than 30 shots. Due to unsatisfactory conduct, drunkenness, refusal to seek employment, and association with known criminals, his parole was revoked, and he was returned to the Massachusetts State Prison. The serial numbers of several of these bills were furnished to the FBI Office in Baltimore. Two of the participants in the Brinks robbery lived in the Stoughton area. Three of the newspapers used to wrap the bills were identified. Continuous investigation, however, had linked him with the gang. They had brought no tools with them, however, and they were unsuccessful. One of the biggest robberies in U.S. history happened here. On August 30, he was taken into custody as a suspicious person. (The arrests of Faherty and Richardson also resulted in the indictment of another Boston hoodlum as an accessory after the fact). Returning to Pennsylvania in February 1954 to stand trial, OKeefe was found guilty of burglary by the state court in McKean County on March 4, 1954. 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. Brinks customers were contacted for information regarding the packaging and shipping materials they used. Accordingly, another lock cylinder was installed until the original one was returned. Soon the underworld rang with startling news concerning this pair. That prison term, together with Pinos conviction in March 1928 for carnal abuse of a girl, provided the basis for the deportation action. 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. With the death of Gusciora, only eight members of the Brinks gang remained to be tried. As the investigation developed and thousands of leads were followed to dead ends, the broad field of possible suspects gradually began to narrow. Captain Marvel mask used as a disguise in the robbery. A passerby might notice that it was missing. 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. It unleashed a trail of eight murders and a global hunt for. "A search warrant was executed in Boston covering the Tremont Street offices occupied by the three men" (FBI). The BBC has greenlit a documentary telling the real story of the 26M ($31.2M) Brink's-Mat robbery spotlighted in Neil Forsyth drama The Gold. 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. 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. The heist happened on Prince Street in Boston's North End on Jan. 17, 1950. OKeefe claimed that he left his hotel room in Boston at approximately 7:00 p.m. on January 17, 1950. Jazz Maffie was convicted of federal income tax evasion and began serving a nine-month sentence in the Federal Penitentiary at Danbury, Connecticut, in June 1954. The robbery of 26m of gold bars from a warehouse near Heathrow airport is one of Britain's most notorious - and biggest - heists. 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. The person ringing the buzzer was a garage attendant. On March 4, 1950, pieces of an identical truck were found at a dump in Stoughton, Massachusetts. Kenneth Noye now: What happened to the criminal depicted in The Gold after the Brink's-Mat robbery,The Gold tells the remarkable true story of a heist that went almost too well, with success bringing a host of problems Other members of the robbery gang also were having their troubles. A roll of waterproof adhesive tape used to gag and bind bank employees that was left at the scene of the crime. This vehicle was traced through motor vehicle records to Pino. 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. 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. His case had gone to the highest court in the land. The. Two of the prime suspects whose nerve and gun-handling experience suited them for the Brinks robbery were Joseph James OKeefe and Stanley Albert Gusciora. In 1997, Loomis Fargo employee David Ghantt robbed the armored car company of $17 million. The gang members who remained at the house of Maffies parents soon dispersed to establish alibis for themselves. Questioned by Boston police on the day following the robbery, Baker claimed that he had eaten dinner with his family on the evening of January 17, 1950, and then left home at about 7:00 p.m. to walk around the neighborhood for about two hours. 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. There were recurring rumors that this hoodlum, Joseph Sylvester Banfield (pictured), had been right down there on the night of the crime. By fixing this time as close as possible to the minute at which the robbery was to begin, the robbers would have alibis to cover their activities up to the final moment. (Geagan and Richardson, known associates of other members of the gang, were among the early suspects. By this time, Baker was suffering from a bad case of nerves. However, by delving into the criminal world, Edwyn. Apparently suspicious, OKeefe crouched low in the front seat of his car as the would-be assassins fired bullets that pierced the windshield. Each of the five lock cylinders was taken on a separate occasion. 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. The Gold: The Inside Story will hear from the . Allegedly, he pulled a gun on OKeefe; several shots were exchanged by the two men, but none of the bullets found their mark. Gusciora also claimed to have been drinking that evening. At the outset, very few facts were available to the investigators. Brian Robinson was arrested in December 1983 after Stephen Black - the security guard who let the robbers into the Brink's-Mat warehouse, and Robinson's brother-in-law - named him to police. From their prison cells, they carefully followed the legal maneuvers aimed at gaining them freedom. Three of the remaining five gang members were previously accounted for, OKeefe and Gusciora being in prison on other charges and Banfield being dead. One of his former girl friends who recalled having seen him on the night of the robbery stated that he definitely was not drunk. However, the group were shocked to find a massive 26 million in 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. During this visit, Gusciora got up from his bed, and, in full view of the clergyman, slipped to the floor, striking his head. During the period immediately following the Brinks robbery, the heat was on OKeefe and Gusciora. A few years before the Brink's-Mat robbery . First, there was the money. OKeefe had no place to keep so large a sum of money. Officials said the incident happened at a Wendy's in a strip mall at 87th and Lafayette, right off the Dan Ryan Expressway. The criminals had been looking to do a. (On January 18, 1956, OKeefe had pleaded guilty to the armed robbery of Brinks.) 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.