The Transit's heavily armed occupants had stolen the bullion less than an hour earlier from the Brink's-Mat security warehouse 12 miles away at Heathrow. Charged with unlawful possession of liquor distillery equipment and violation of Internal Revenue laws, he had many headaches during the period in which OKeefe was giving so much trouble to the gang. Police recovered only $58,000 of the $2.7 million stolen. A third attempt on OKeefes life was made on June 16, 1954. All efforts to identify the persons responsible for the theft and the persons who had cut up the truck were unsuccessful. 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. Prominent among the other strong suspects was Vincent James Costa, brother-in-law of Pino. Subsequently, this machine gun was identified as having been used in the attempt on OKeefes life. During this operation, one of the employees had lost his glasses; they later could not be found on the Brinks premises. 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. Within two months of his return, another member of the gang suffered a legal setback. OKeefes racketeer associate, who allegedly had assisted him in holding Costa for ransom and was present during the shooting scrape between OKeefe and Baker, disappeared on August 3, 1954. In December 1954, he indicated to the agents that Pino could look for rough treatment if he (OKeefe) again was released. Priest, Irishman Convicted in Brink's Robbery; Two Others Acquitted The truck pieces were concealed in fiber bags when found. He was granted a full pardon by the acting governor of Massachusetts. Serious consideration originally had been given to robbing Brinks in 1947, when Brinks was located on Federal Street in Boston. One of these officers quickly grabbed the criminals hand, and a large roll of money fell from it. Before the robbers could take him prisoner, the garage attendant walked away. On November 16, 1959, the United States Supreme Court denied a request of the defense counsel for a writ of certiorari. OKeefe had no place to keep so large a sum of money. What Was the Brink's-Mat Robbery? | History Hit Even after these convictions, OKeefe and Gusciora continued to seek their release. Immediately upon leaving, the gang loaded the loot into the truck that was parked on Prince Street near the door. 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. In December 1948, Brinks moved from Federal Street to 165 Prince Street in Boston. Their plan was to enter the Brinks building and take a truck containing payrolls. The FBI further learned that four revolvers had been taken by the gang. A t the time, the Brink's-Mat vault was thought to be one of the most secure facilities in the world. 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. A federal search warrant was obtained, and the home was searched by agents on April 27, 1950. BBC The Gold: What happened to DCS Brian Boyce after Heathrow Brink's The Boston underworld rumbled with reports that an automobile had pulled alongside OKeefes car in Dorchester, Massachusetts, during the early morning hours of June 5. Adding to these problems was the constant pressure being exerted upon Pino by OKeefe from the county jail in Towanda, Pennsylvania. The full details of this important development were immediately furnished to the FBI Office in Boston. With the death of Gusciora, only eight members of the Brinks gang remained to be tried. Had any particles of evidence been found in the loot which might directly show that they had handled it? The Brink's truck was robbed in the early morning . They did not expect to. Democrat and Chronicle. And it nearly was. 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. OKeefe was wounded in the wrist and chest, but again he managed to escape with his life. Six members of the gangBaker, Costa, Geagan, Maffie, McGinnis, and Pinowere arrested by FBI agents on January 12, 1956. Members of the Purple Gang of the 1930s found that there was renewed interest in their activities. 00:29. 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. Thorough inquiries were made concerning the disposition of the bags after their receipt by the Massachusetts firm. After completing its hearings on January 9, 1953, the grand jury retired to weigh the evidence. You'd be forgiven for mistaking the 2005 Miami Brinks heist for a movie script. In a series of interviews during the succeeding days, OKeefe related the full story of the Brinks robbery. Three and one-half hours later, the verdict had been reached. After denying any knowledge of the escape of Trigger Burke, Pino was released. Gusciora now had passed beyond the reach of all human authority, and OKeefe was all the more determined to see that justice would be done. Subsequently, he engaged in a conversation with McGinnis and a Boston police officer. Even in their jail cells, however, they showed no respect for law enforcement. This was in their favor. ), (After serving his sentence, Fat John resumed a life of crime. On the afternoon of July 9, he was visited by a clergyman. As the robbers sped from the scene, a Brinks employee telephoned the Boston Police Department. Shakur, the stepfather of hip-hop star . Two days after Christmas of 1955, FBI agents paid another visit to OKeefe. Much of the money taken from the money changer appeared to have been stored a long time. 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. As the investigation developed and thousands of leads were followed to dead ends, the broad field of possible suspects gradually began to narrow. As this bag was being emptied later that evening, the glasses were discovered and destroyed by the gang. From their prison cells, they carefully followed the legal maneuvers aimed at gaining them freedom. Brinks customers were contacted for information regarding the packaging and shipping materials they used. 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. 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. After a period of hostility, he began to display a friendly attitude. OKeefe and Gusciora reportedly had worked together on a number of occasions. 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. Nonetheless, several members of the Brinks gang were visibly shaken and appeared to be abnormally worried during the latter part of May and early in June 1954. 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. Almost immediately, the gang began laying new plans. This man claimed to have no knowledge of Pinos involvement in the Brinks robbery.). 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. The theft changed the face of the British underworld. The new proceedings were based upon the fact that Pino had been arrested in December 1948 for a larceny involving less than $100. In the years following the infamous 1983 Brink's-Mat robbery, many of the criminals and police alike were killed, leading to speculation there might be . As a protective measure, he was incarcerated in the Hampden County jail at Springfield, Massachusetts, rather than the Suffolk County jail in Boston. What Was the Brink's-Mat Heist and What Happened to All the Gold? The planning and practice had a military intensity to them; the attention to detail including the close approximation of the uniform of the Brinks guards was near . Considerable thought was given to every detail. The Great Brinks Robbery of 1950: Not Quite the Perfect Crime An immediate effort also was made to obtain descriptive data concerning the missing cash and securities. The results were negative. 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. 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. Allegedly, other members of the Brinks gang arranged for OKeefe to be paid a small part of the ransom he demanded, and Costa was released on May 20, 1954. OKeefe and Gusciora had been close friends for many years. During the period in which Pinos deportation troubles were mounting, OKeefe completed his sentence at Towanda, Pennsylvania. Even fearing the new bills might be linked with the crime, McGinnis suggested a process for aging the new money in a hurry.. Prior to this time, McGinnis had been at his liquor store. 'Holy Heist' documentary to bring the Rochester Brink's heist to TV Inside the wild true story behind BBC's British gangland drama In the succeeding two weeks, nearly 1,200 prospective jurors were eliminated as the defense counsel used their 262 peremptory challenges. 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. Brinks employee fights for job after being accused in half - CBC 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 man, subsequently identified as a small-time Boston underworld figure, was located and questioned. During their forays inside the building, members of the gang took the lock cylinders from five doors, including the one opening onto Prince Street. The group were led . 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 . The month preceding January 17, 1950, witnessed approximately a half-dozen approaches to Brinks. Three of the remaining five gang members were previously accounted for, OKeefe and Gusciora being in prison on other charges and Banfield being dead. 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. During November and December 1949, the approach to the Brinks building and the flight over the getaway route were practiced to perfection. The group were led . 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. Brinks Robbery Cap FBI He claimed he had been drinking in various taverns from approximately 5:10 p.m. until 7:45 p.m. As the truck sped away with nine members of the gangand Costa departed in the stolen Ford sedanthe Brinks employees worked themselves free and reported the crime. 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. In the hours immediately following the robbery, the underworld began to feel the heat of the investigation. What happened to the other half of the Brink's-Mat gold? Seven months later, however, he was again paroled. Even if released, he thought, his days were numbered. They did not expect to find the Aladdin's cave to contain some 26m in gold bullion and diamonds that they stumbled upon. The Gold mixes fact and fiction for dramatic purposes 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. On October 11, 1950, Gusciora was sentenced to serve from five to 20 years in the Western Pennsylvania Penitentiary at Pittsburgh. Rumors from the underworld pointed suspicion at several criminal gangs. 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. The stolen 6,800 gold ingots, diamonds and cash would be worth 100million today. 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. He ran a gold and jewellery dealing company, Scadlynn Ltd, in Bristol with business partners Garth Victor Chappell and Terence Edward James Patch. Since the robbery had taken place between approximately 7:10 and 7:27 p.m., it was quite probable that a gang, as well drilled as the Brinks robbers obviously were, would have arranged to rendezvous at a specific time. 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. In July 1956, another significant turn of events took place. The Brinks Mat Robbery: The real story that inspired The Gold. Subsequently, OKeefe left his carand the $200,000in a garage on Blue Hill Avenue in Boston. First, there was the money. His explanation: He had been drinking at a bar in Boston. A thorough investigation was made concerning his whereabouts on the evening of January 17, 1950. The. Pino would take the locks to the mans shop, and keys would be made for them. Some persons claimed to have seen him. All five employees had been forced at gunpoint to lie face down on the floor. He arrived in Baltimore on the morning of June 3 and was picked up by the Baltimore Police Department that evening. On November 26, 1981, six armed men from South London broke into the Brink's-Mat warehouse near London Heathrow. Following the federal grand jury hearings, the FBIs intense investigation continued. It was billed as the perfect crime and the the crime of the century.. None of these materialized because the gang did not consider the conditions to be favorable. The Great Brinks Robbery of 1950 met all of these requirementsa great pile of cash disappeared with no evidence, leads, or suspects. In September 1949, Pinos efforts to evade deportation met with success. Chicago police suspect Edgewater Brinks truck robbery - CBS Chicago He was through with Pino, Baker, McGinnis, Maffie, and the other Brinks conspirators who had turned against him. However, the group were shocked to find a massive 26 million in gold . In pursuing the underworld rumors concerning the principal suspects in the Brinks case, the FBI succeeded in identifying more probable members of the gang. Burke, a professional killer, allegedly had been hired by underworld associates of OKeefe to assassinate him. The Gold: The Inside Story will hear from the . Each of these leads was checked out. Each of them had surreptitiously entered the premises on several occasions after the employees had left for the day. LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Jewelry, gems, high-end watches and other valuables worth millions of dollars were stolen from a transport vehicle in Southern California. The last false approach took place on January 16, 1950the night before the robbery. During these weeks, OKeefe renewed his association with a Boston racketeer who had actively solicited funds for the defense of OKeefe and Gusciora in 1950. 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. Great Brink's Robbery - Wikipedia All had been published in Boston between December 4, 1955, and February 21, 1956. Banfield had been a close associate of McGinnis for many years. As long as he was in prison, he could do no physical harm to his Boston criminal associates. How America's Biggest Heist, the Great Brinks Robbery, Fell Apart BBC Greenlights 'The Gold: The Inside Story' Companion Doc; Dorothy 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. Mr. Gilbert was 37 on the day of the attack, Oct. 20, 1981, when nearly $1.6 million in cash was stolen from an armored Brink's car outside the Nanuet Mall near Nyack. The amusement arcade operator told the officer that he had followed the man who passed this $10.00 bill to a nearby tavern. Among the early suspects was Anthony Pino, an alien who had been a principal suspect in numerous major robberies and burglaries in Massachusetts. He, too, had left his home shortly before 7:00 p.m. on the night of the robbery and met the Boston police officer soon thereafter. 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. Baker fled and the brief meeting adjourned. What happened to the other half of the Brink's-Mat gold? In the back were Pino, OKeefe, Baker, Faherty, Maffie, Gusciora, Michael Vincent Geagan (pictured), and Thomas Francis Richardson. Well-known Boston hoodlums were picked up and questioned by police. (The arrests of Faherty and Richardson also resulted in the indictment of another Boston hoodlum as an accessory after the fact). The robbery of 26m of gold bars from a warehouse near Heathrow airport is one of Britain's most notorious - and biggest - heists. Approximately one and one-half hours later, Banfield returned with McGinnis. 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. In a film-style series of events, criminals broke into the. Both had served prison sentences, and both were well known to underworld figures on the East Coast. 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. 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. One of his former girl friends who recalled having seen him on the night of the robbery stated that he definitely was not drunk. 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. Many of the details had previously been obtained during the intense six-year investigation. On November 26 1983, six armed robbers entered the Brink's-Mat security warehouse at the Heathrow International Trading Estate. The curse of Brink's-Mat: What happened to the Brink's-Mat robbers? He had been convicted of armed robbery in 1940 and served several months in the Massachusetts State Reformatory and the Norfolk, Massachusetts, Prison Colony. As a cooperative measure, the information gathered by the FBI in the Brinks investigation was made available to the District Attorney of Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 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 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. The missing racketeers automobile was found near his home; however, his whereabouts remain a mystery. 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. 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. OKeefe was sentenced on August 5, 1954, to serve 27 months in prison. Photo courtesy Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection. From Boston, the pressure quickly spread to other cities. Who was John Palmer and how was he linked to the Brink's-Mat robbery After each interview, FBI agents worked feverishly into the night checking all parts of his story which were subject to verification. The other gang members would not talk. The names of Pino, McGinnis, Adolph Jazz Maffie, and Henry Baker were frequently mentioned in these rumors, and it was said that they had been with OKeefe on the Big Job.. After continuing up the street to the end of the playground which adjoined the Brinks building, the truck stopped. 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. Soon after OKeefes return in March 1954, Baker and his wife left Boston on a vacation.. OKeefe claimed that he left his hotel room in Boston at approximately 7:00 p.m. on January 17, 1950. 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. A search of the hoodlums room in a Baltimore hotel (registered to him under an assumed name) resulted in the location of $3,780 that the officers took to police headquarters.