Paul Vario subsequently ordered DeSimone to kill Edwards. Instead, Edwards parked the van in front of a fire hydrant at his girlfriend's apartment, where police discovered it two days after the heist. Edwards was supposed to have driven the vehicle to New Jersey, where it (along with any potential evidence inside) was to be destroyed in a junk yard belonging to John Gotti. Parnell "Stacks" Edwards had failed to get rid of the van that had been used in the heist. Four others - Manri, McMahon, DeSimone and Sepe - drove away in the second car. The boxes of money were removed from the van and placed in the trunks of the two automobiles.
The robbers drove to meet Burke at an auto repair shop in Canarsie, Brooklyn. The employees were told not to call the Port Authority Police until 4:30 a.m., when the first call to police was recorded. Two gunmen climbed in the van as the others got into the Buick.
Īt 4:21 a.m., the van pulled to the front of the building and the crash car pulled in behind.
They removed 72 15-pound cartons of untraceable money from the vault and placed them in the van. Some of the robbers took Eirich at gunpoint to the double-door vault. Inside the warehouse, employee Rolf Rebmann heard a noise by the loading ramp and went to investigate he was captured and brought with Whalen to the lunchroom to join the others. He was brought to join the other hostages in the lunchroom. Whalen screamed for help as he ran, but was pistol-whipped and thrown into the van. One of the men told him to get in the van. Outside the terminal, Whalen noticed two unmasked men sitting in a black van parked at the Lufthansa cargo building 261 ramp as he drove past. Murray was forced to lure Eirich to come upstairs he joined the rest of the captured employees. He said that Rudi Eirich, the night shift cargo traffic manager, and Kerry Whalen, a cargo transfer agent, were there. Murray was asked who else was in the warehouse. He was walked into the lunchroom where five other Lufthansa employees were on their meal break since 3:00 a.m., and ordered to lie flat on the floor with their eyes closed. Inside the terminal John Murray, a senior cargo agent, was the first employee to be taken hostage. A late model Buick was positioned in the terminal parking lot with its lights off. Some of the crew climbed up the stairs of the east tower and entered wearing ski masks and gloves. The padlock on the gate was cut with a pair of bolt cutters. On December 11, 1978, around 3:00 a.m., the six men in a black Ford Econoline pulled up to the Lufthansa cargo building 261. Werner was to receive a flat 10% of the take. However, those amounts were based on the estimated haul, which was only $2 million compared to the actual take of $5.875 million. Depending on his role in the robbery, each participant was to receive $10,000 to $50,000. Burke's son Frank would drive one of the back up vehicles and Parnell "Stacks" Edwards' job was to dispose of the van afterwards. īurke decided on Tommy DeSimone, Angelo Sepe, Louis Cafora, Joe Manri, Paolo LiCastri and Robert McMahon as the robbers. Werner and Gruenwald had previously been successful in stealing $22,000 in foreign currency (equivalent to $100,000 in 2020) from their employer Lufthansa in 1976. The information had originally come from Louis Werner, a worker at the airport who owed Krugman $20,000 for gambling debts (equivalent to $85,000 in 2020) and from his co-worker Peter Gruenwald. The plot began when bookmaker Martin Krugman told Henry Hill (an associate of Burke's) that Lufthansa flew in currency to its cargo terminal at John F. The heist was allegedly planned by Jimmy Burke, an associate of the Lucchese crime family, and carried out by several associates. The heist's magnitude made it one of the longest-investigated crimes in the United States the latest arrest associated with the robbery was made in 2014, which resulted in acquittal. The money and jewelry were never recovered. The only person convicted in the robbery was Louis Werner, an airport worker who helped plan the heist. Burke is also alleged to have either committed or ordered the murders of many of those involved in the months following the robbery to avoid being implicated in the heist. Jimmy Burke, a Lucchese crime family associate, was reputed to be the mastermind of the robbery, but he was never officially charged in connection with the crime. An estimated $5.875 million (equivalent to $23.3 million in 2020) was stolen, with $5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewelry, making it the largest cash robbery committed on American soil at the time. Kennedy International Airport on December 11, 1978. The Lufthansa heist was a robbery at New York City's John F.
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