During the trip from Roxbury, Pino distributed Navy-type peacoats and chauffeurs caps to the other seven men in the rear of the truck. Other information provided by OKeefe helped to fill the gaps which still existed. Accordingly, another lock cylinder was installed until the original one was returned. Members of the Purple Gang of the 1930s found that there was renewed interest in their activities. Brink's 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. An immediate effort also was made to obtain descriptive data concerning the missing cash and securities. 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. OKeefes reputation for nerve was legend. Banfield drove the truck to the house of Maffies parents in Roxbury. An automobile identified as the car used in the escape was located near a Boston hospital, and police officers concealed themselves in the area. Many problems and dangers were involved in such a robbery, and the plans never crystallized. In September 1949, Pinos efforts to evade deportation met with success. If Baker heard these rumors, he did not wait around very long to see whether they were true. And what of McGinnis himself? This was a question which preyed heavily upon their minds. Geagan claimed that he spent the evening at home and did not learn of the Brinks robbery until the following day. During the period in which Pinos deportation troubles were mounting, OKeefe completed his sentence at Towanda, Pennsylvania. A private security and protection company was co-ordinating the shipment of $20 million worth of gold and high-value goods when they were stolen from Toronto Pearson International Airport. Shakur's conviction includes planning the $1.6 million Brinks robbery in Rockland on Oct. 20, 1981. Executive producers are Tommy Bulfin for the BBC; Neil Forsyth and Ben Farrell for Tannadice Pictures; and Kate Laffey and Claire Sowerby-Sheppard for VIS. WebLASD confirmed this was not a typical Brinks armored car seen in a city environment. Instead, they said the trailer was targeted near Frazier Park in the mountains along I-5. Two other Baltimore police officers who were walking along the street nearby noted this maneuver. His explanation: He had been drinking at a bar in Boston. 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. There was James Ignatius Faherty, an armed robbery specialist whose name had been mentioned in underworld conversations in January 1950, concerning a score on which the gang members used binoculars to watch their intended victims count large sums of money. The wall partition described by the Boston criminal was located in Fat Johns office, and when the partition was removed, a picnic-type cooler was found. The FBI further learned that four revolvers had been taken by the gang. Some persons claimed to have seen him. Examination revealed the cause of his death to be a brain tumor and acute cerebral edema. Local officers searched their homes, but no evidence linking them with the truck or the robbery was found. After the truck parts were found, additional suspicion was attached to these men. Inside the building, the gang members carefully studied all available information concerning Brinks schedules and shipments. In addition to the general descriptions received from the Brinks employees, the investigators obtained several pieces of physical evidence. 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. Each of these leads was checked out. [19] Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover, took over supervision of the investigation.[20]. For example, from a citizen in California came the suggestion that the loot might be concealed in the Atlantic Ocean near Boston. His records showed that he had worked on the offices early in April 1956 under instructions of Fat John. The loot could not have been hidden behind the wall panel prior to that time. The robbers carefully planned routine inside Brinks was interrupted only when the attendant in the adjoining Brinks garage sounded the buzzer. On the afternoon of August 28, 1954, Trigger Burke escaped from the Suffolk County jail in Boston, where he was being held on the gun-possession charge arising from the June 16 shooting of OKeefe. From left, Sgt. A trial began on August 6, 1956. Brinks [15] Two vehicles were stolen: a truck, to carry away the loot from the robbery; and a car, which would be used to block any pursuit. involved 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. From interviews with the five employees whom the criminals had confronted, it was learned that between five and seven robbers had entered the building. 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. WebThe robberys mastermind was Anthony Fats Pino, a career criminal who recruited a group of 10 other men to stake out the depot for 18 months to figure out when it held the Pino would take the locks to the mans shop, and keys would be made for them. [16] At 7:10 pm, they entered the building and tied up the five employees working in the vault area. The pair recruited criminal Kenneth Noye, an expert in his field, who Underworld figures in Boston have generally speculated that the racketeer was killed because of his association with OKeefe. O'Keefe cooperated with writer Bob Considine on The Men Who Robbed Brink's, a 1961 "as told to" book about the robbery and its aftermath. Each of the five lock cylinders was taken on a separate occasion. While the officer and amusement arcade operator were talking to him, the hoodlum reached into his pocket, quickly withdrew his hand again and covered his hand with a raincoat he was carrying. Brink's More than 100 persons took the stand as witnesses for the prosecution and the defense during September 1956. Extensive efforts were made to detect pencil markings and other notations on the currency that the criminals thought might be traceable to Brinks. This man, subsequently identified as a small-time Boston underworld figure, was located and questioned. WebRobbery Seven of the group went into the Brink's building: OKeefe, Gusciora, Baker, Maffie, Geagan, Faherty, and Richardson. In the end, the perfect crime had a perfect endingfor everyone but the robbers. In the fall of 1955, an upper court overruled the conviction on the grounds that the search and seizure of the still were illegal.). Brinks Continuous investigation, however, had linked him with the gang. On the afternoon of July 9, he was visited by a clergyman. 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. The gang members who remained at the house of Maffies parents soon dispersed to establish alibis for themselves. Two hours later he was dead. The conviction for burglary in McKean County, Pennsylvania, still hung over his head, and legal fees remained to be paid. After a couple of attempts he hired underworld hitman Elmer "Trigger" Burke to kill O'Keefe. (Geagan, who was on parole at the time, left the truck before it arrived at the home in Roxbury where the loot was unloaded. A lock () or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. 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. Other members of the group came under suspicion but there was not enough evidence for an indictment, so law enforcement kept pressure on the suspects. 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. The roofs of buildings on Prince and Snow Hill Streets soon were alive with inconspicuous activity as the gang looked for the most advantageous sites from which to observe what transpired inside Brinks offices. Even Pino, whose deportation troubles then were a heavy burden, was arrested by the Boston police in August 1954. Jeweler and also a bullion dealer, John Palmer, was arrested. There was Adolph Jazz Maffie, one of the hoodlums who allegedly was being pressured to contribute money for the legal battle of OKeefe and Gusciora against Pennsylvania authorities. On the night of January 17, 1952exactly two years after the crime occurredthe FBIs Boston Office received an anonymous telephone call from an individual who claimed he was sending a letter identifying the Brinks robbers. 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. 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 police officer said he had been talking to McGinnis first, and Pino arrived later to join them. All identifying marks placed on currency and securities by the customers were noted, and appropriate stops were placed at banking institutions across the nation. (On January 18, 1956, OKeefe had pleaded guilty to the armed robbery of Brinks.) 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.
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