Infamous America - LUFTHANSA HEIST Ep. 2 | “In The Hole”

Episode Date: July 21, 2021

Jimmy Burke and Henry Hill take an ill-fated trip to Florida that lands them in trouble with the law. While they’re out of the game for a while, a cargo worker for Lufthansa Airlines develops a dangerous gambling habit. When he can’t pay his debts, he dreams up a plan for a multimillion dollar heist. The idea falls into the lap of the Robert’s Lounge Gang, and the stage is set for one of the biggest robberies in American history. Get an awesome box from Bespoke Post at BoxOfAwesome.com and enter the code “infamous” for 20% off your first box! Sign up for HelloFresh today! Use our link and promo code: HelloFresh.com/infamous14 Join Black Barrel+ for bingeable seasons with no commercials : blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. This show is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please visit AirwaveMedia.com to check out other great podcasts like Ben Franklin’s World, Once Upon A Crime, and many more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My relentless sleep problems have always come from an overactive mind. I lay in bed at night with my mind racing from one thing to another, and then, of course, I have a brainstorm about something new. That lights the fire, and then I'm in real trouble. To calm my mind, the only things that have ever worked with any consistency are sleep gummies. Sleepy Time Advanced Gummies from Mood.com come in various combinations of THC, CBD, and CBN, so you can get something that's very low in THC, but higher in CBD, which helps turn off the stress,

and CBN, which is the thing that makes you sleepy. The brain shuts up, the racing thoughts stop, and it's off to sleep. Mood is federally compliant. The gummies are legal and delivered right to your door. At Mood.com, get 20% off your first order with our promo code, Infamous. Go to Mood.com and use the code infamous to get 20% off your first order. your first order. And they have a 100-day satisfaction guarantee. Mood.com promo code infamous. It was nearing midnight on an autumn evening in 1978, and Joe Manry was practically vibrating in his

seat as he drove toward Roberts Lounge. Joe was part of the gang with Jimmy Burton, Henry Hill, and Tommy D. Simone, and he had just heard some of the best news of his career. It was an idea for a potential robbery, and the payout could be in the millions. It came from an unlikely source, the Knight Supervisor in the cargo office of Lufthansa Airlines at JFK Airport. Guys like the supervisor were usually a dime a dozen, lowly dreamers who talked a big game and then couldn't deliver. But Joe had to admit this one seemed different. Joe had played it cool during the meeting. All he said was that he'd be in touch. Now he was on his way to Robert's lounge to report to the boss of his crew, Jimmy Burke.

Joe parked his car, walked into the lounge, and found Jimmy at the end of the bar. Jimmy looked up and immediately noticed something different about Joe Manning. Joe's nickname was Joe Buda because of his round midsection and normally calm demeanor. But right now, Joe was electric. He was smiling from ear to ear. Jimmy asked what Joe thought of the supervisor's plan to rip off Lufthansa. Joe took a breath and then said simply, It's good, Jimmy. It's real good. From Black Barrel Media, this is Infamous America.

I'm your host, Chris Wimmer. In this season, we're telling a six-part story about one of the biggest robberies in U.S. history, the 1978 Lufthansa heist. This is episode two, in the hole. By the early 1970s, Henry Hill was doing pretty well for himself. He had grown into a respected and sought-after wise guy. He was married to Karen Friedman, and they had two daughters, and he owned a restaurant called The Suite.

He had intended for the suite to remain a legitimate business, to give the appearance of some distance between himself and the mafia, but it quickly became a hangout spot for made men and associates alike. Jimmy Burke was also doing well for himself. He ran the crew that included Henry and Tommy de Simone, the youngest member of the team. Jimmy's bar, Roberts Lounge, was headquarters for the crew. It was a social club and a phone bank for Jimmy's gambling operation and occasionally a torture chamber for people who couldn't pay their debts.

After the Air France robbery a couple of years earlier that had netted the crew $420,000, Jimmy and Henry were on a roll. But then Jimmy asked Henry to go to Florida. On a day in 1970, Jimmy asked Henry if he'd be willing to fly down to Tampa later that day. Jimmy was going down there for a simple errand, and he wanted some help. One of their associates was the president of the local union of waiters and commissary workers at JFK Airport. He was owed some gambling money by a man down in Tampa. The union leader wanted to fly to Tampa to collect his debt.

and Jimmy and Henry would act as muscle if needed. Tommy was originally going to go with Jimmy, but he had been arrested the night before, so Jimmy wanted to know if Henry would be a substitute. The flight was already paid for, and Henry thought he could use a trip anyway, so he agreed. He called Karen and told her to pack his bag.

Henry, Jimmy, and the union leader flew to Tampa. When they arrived, Henry learned they would meet a guy who owned a bar outside Ebor City, which was the Cuban part of Tampa. The union leader brought his cousin along, and the four men drove to the bar. When they arrived, Henry and Jimmy hung back while the union leader and his cousin talked to the man who owed the money. The discussion quickly got heated, and Jimmy stepped into the fray. He grabbed the bar owner by the tie and marched him out of the building as other patrons in the bar watched in stunned silence. Outside, Jimmy dragged the guy down the street as the union leader demanded the money he was owed.

Every time the bar owner refused, Henry pistol whipped him. Eventually, the bar owner couldn't take it anymore. He agreed to pay, but only half of the total. He said the other half was owed by a doctor who'd gone in on the bet with him. The union leader said he didn't care who paid what. He just wanted what was his. With a tacit agreement in hand, the group walked the man back into his bar and sorted out the money situation. They found a doctor to clean the man up after his beating and then returned him to his family.

The group from New York flew home with a satisfactory outcome and assumed the problem was solved. A few months later, they learned it was definitely not. It turned out that the bar owner had a sister who was a typist at the FBI's Southwest Southwest Florida office. When she saw the condition of her brother, she immediately reported the incident. State and federal authorities opened investigations, and it didn't take long to close in on Henry and Jimmy as the men who had assaulted the bar owner. When the matter finally came up for trial, the prosecution called witnesses from the bar who had seen some of the early heated moments, but they hadn't actually seen the beating. The union leader had a clean record, and his test

was enough to clear Jimmy and Henry of the assault charge. But then came a federal case on extortion charges. Jimmy and Henry couldn't win that one. In November of 1972, they were each sentenced to 10 years in prison. Jimmy started serving his sentence immediately. But Henry was able to avoid prison for nearly two years because of the appeals process. He finally started his sentence in 1974, and he quickly discovered that life in prison

prison was far better for wise guys than it was for the general population. He was in the Lewisburg Federal Prison in central Pennsylvania, and he was reunited with one of his mentors, Paul Vario, who was doing time for tax evasion. Paul and apparently a ton of other mobsters seemed to run the joint. The list of perks is long and nearly unbelievable, and it was accurately portrayed in the movie Goodfellas. Henry made several connections and began smuggling drugs into prison. He made serious money, even while behind bars. He also worked the system and abused every rehabilitation program and work detail available.

In doing so, he made himself eligible for parole after just four years. And during those four years, the plan for what has been called the biggest heist in American history came together. Before his time in prison, Jimmy used to stay awake until 4 in the morning, pacing in his apartment. Sometimes he turned on the TV when he couldn't sleep, if only for the noise. And there was one commercial in particular that used to catch Jimmy's attention, because it starred someone he knew. The star was Martin Krugman. Krugman owned a business called For Men Only. It was a men's salon and wig shop on Queens Boulevard, and it was next door to the suite.

the bar that was owned by Henry Hill. In the commercial, Krugman assured the viewers that his wigs never fell off, and to prove it, he swam back and forth in a pool while wearing a wig. According to Henry, Jimmy felt disrespected by the ad. Krugman owed Jimmy protection money, yet apparently he had the money to pay for a TV commercial. Krugman was an associate of the Lucchese family, just like Henry and Jimmy and the rest of the crew. His salon and wig shop was a legitimate business, but he also participated in illegal gambling and sold drugs out of the back of his shop.

And it was the gambling side hustle that eventually led to one of the biggest robberies in U.S. history. Krugman took bets for a man named Louis Werner. Warner was a cargo supervisor at JFK Airport for the German airline Lifanza. He was a prolific gambler, who had an estranged wife, a girlfriend, and three children. There was no way he could take care of them and pay his gambling debts on a salary of just $15,000 a year. So he went to loan sharks to borrow money. So then he had a wife, a girlfriend, three kids, gambling debts, and loan debts. Lewis Werner was in a hole, and he just kept digging deeper. That was what drove him to start contemplating the idea of stealing from his

employer, Lufthansa Airlines. He had the thought for the first time in October of 1976, while Henry and Jimmy were in prison. Werner was working the night shift when a bag came through Lufthansa's cargo office. Inside were stacks of cash in various currencies. Altogether, it was worth $22,000. It was Werner's job to make sure the money made it to the airport's special storage room after clearing customs. Instead, Warner opened the bag and took the money for himself. The theft was so spontaneous and unplanned that he panicked later that night. He went to the home of a trusted coworker named Peter.

Warner explained everything and said he needed to get rid of the cash. Peter agreed to help hide the money, and he put it in his car. Later that night, Peter realized that his car probably wasn't the most brilliant hiding spot ever conceived by a new criminal, so he moved it to a nearby dump. The next morning, when the cops didn't bust down his door, he retrieved the money and buried it in his backyard. Ideally, that's where it would have stayed for several weeks until Lufthansa stopped looking and reported the loss to the insurance company. But Lewis Werner couldn't wait that long. His debts were piling up, and collection time was coming. Just a week after the theft,

Werner wanted to exchange all the foreign currencies for U.S. dollars. To do so, Werner brought in a middleman. It was a bizarre choice for two reasons. First, it wasn't necessary. Peter was familiar with money exchanges, and he had volunteered to do it. But Werner said no. Second, the middle man who Werner chose to work with was the guy who was dating his estranged wife.

No surprise, it didn't work out well for Werner and Peter. Each person in the deal was supposed to receive $8,000, about a third of the take. But when the middleman finished exchanging the money, Werner and Peter only received $5,000 each. Warner wouldn't admit it, but it was obvious to Peter. They'd been screwed. Peter accepted the money, but he didn't like it. He felt stupid risking his job and quite possibly his freedom over $5,000. If Werner ever wanted to do this kind of thing again, it would have to be for much more than that. It would have to be for at least a million.

Two years later, the opportunity to do just that presented itself. In 1978, the same year Henry Hill got out of prison, Lewis Werner was $18,000 in debt. Lewis was clearly stressed about it. One day at work at the Laftanza Cargo Building, he and his friend Peter were in the restroom at the same time. Peter could see the anxiety on Lewis's face, and he said they should meet at their usual drinking spot and talk. When they met that evening, Peter made himself clear. He was willing to rob Lufanza again, but it could not be as sloppy as last time. This couldn't just be a spur-the-moment thing. There would have to be a plan, and that suited Lewis just fine.

With a carefully executed plan, who knew how much they could steal? Peter took out a piece of paper. It was a map of the Lufthansa Cargo Office that he had drawn himself. One of the rooms on the map immediately caught Lewis's eye. It was marked High Val. High Val was short for high value room. Like the strong room at Air France, the high value room at Leftonza was where the most valuable cargo was stored after a flight. A person with access to the room could see shipping schedules and way bills of the cargo, and that person would know it exactly how much the cargo was worth. As it happened, Lewis Werner was a cargo supervisor who had access to the high-value room. And sometimes the cargo in that room was untraceable

U.S. dollars. In Europe, banks converted West German Deutschmarks into U.S. dollars. Then those dollars were bundled into packages and flown to the United States on Lufthansa Airlines. But robbing Lufthansa was not going to be as easy as robbing. air France 10 years earlier. In that one, Henry and Tommy D. Simone simply walked into the building, used a key to open the strong room, stuffed the money into a suitcase, and walked out. Leftanza had more security protocols, not many, but more than Air France. This was still 1978. It wasn't like a Mission Impossible movie where Henry would have to jump out of a space shuttle above Earth, free fall through the atmosphere, parachute into the eye of our

hurricane, used the jet stream to slingshot him toward the cargo building, and fly perfectly into an air vent the size of a toaster at the exact moment that the only guard on duty turned his back. Laftanza would be tough, but not that tough. Company policy required that at least two people be present in the high value room during any visit. There was also a log which each worker signed upon entrance and exit of the room. And most importantly, there were special keys that were used to disable a set of alarms for the room's inner and outer chambers. According to Lewis, if a would-be robber failed any of the protocols, especially the alarms, the port authority police would immediately be notified and the

airport would be sealed within 90 seconds. Peter and Lewis realized they didn't just need a plan, they needed a team to execute it. Peter had an idea, but he didn't tell Lewis, about it. There were a handful of fellow JFK workers who drank at the same bar as Peter and Lewis. The guys in the group had been involved in criminal activities in the past, but Peter didn't know the extent. He was friends with one of the guys, and he told his buddy that he had a way to make millions of dollars. All he needed was help from the group. Peter's friend didn't believe it. Peter said he was telling the truth, and he had the paperwork to prove it. Insurance statements from the high-value room. The numbers spoke for themselves, and Peter's friend agreed to a

meeting. Unfortunately for Peter, it was a disappointing meeting. The guys from the bar were little more than petty thieves. There was no way they could handle something this big. Peter struck out on finding a crew, and when he told Lewis about the attempt, Lewis was irate. Not only had Peter gone behind Lewis's back, but the attempt failed. now there were more people who knew that Lewis wanted to rob Lufthansa. After that confrontation, Peter was out. But the irony was, Lewis was leaving a trail of witnesses as well. For some reason, Lewis originally wanted to include in the new plan, the middleman from the 1976 robbery, the same middleman who had probably screwed him out of some of his share of the money and who was

dating his estranged wife. So Lewis told the middleman about the idea that he was, to rob the high-value room. And the middleman told his girlfriend, Lewis's wife. And Lewis's wife started asking him about the money. And Lewis started to get concerned that the idea might have spread beyond his control, namely to law enforcement.

So he told the middleman and his estranged wife that they were out. And if he was starting to get nervous about this whole thing, he really didn't have much choice. He still needed the money because his bookie, Marty Cruz, was out of patience. Marty sent a courier to find Lewis. The courier usually carried money

between bookies and bettors, but he also had to carry excuses when gamblers like Lewis didn't have the money they owed. Being this kind of middleman could get difficult, and that's the way it was now. Marty and Lewis were both stubborn. Lewis continuously claimed he had done nothing wrong, and Marty made a note every time Lewis had. When the courier found Lewis, he took a diplomatic approach. He and Lewis had known each other for a long time. They both liked to gamble, and they had met years ago at a bowling alley. And that's where the courier found Lewis now, at a bowling alley.

The courier asked Lewis how he intended to pay Marty. Lewis said he had a plan, and he explained the idea of the Lufthansa heist. Then Lewis said the magic words. He needed help. He needed a crew of experienced guys to pull off the caper. The courier took the message back to Marty, and Marty was intrigued. And there was only one crew to take the idea to, the Roberts Lounge gang. Marty was an associate, and his wig shop was right next door to Henry Hill's bar.

And as luck would have it, Henry was out of prison and back in the game. After Henry had maintained a spotless record as a model inmate at Lewisburg Federal Prison, he was transferred to Allenwood Minimum Security Prison and then released on parole on July 12, 1978. He'd served four years of his 10-year sentence. While he was at Lewisburg, he'd secured a pipeline to drugs coming out of Pittsburgh. His wife Karen and others helped smuggle the drugs into prison, and Henry used them to make money on the... inside. He used the money to bribe guards and inmates and sent some back outside to Karen for

living expenses. When he was released, he ramped up the flow of drugs from the pipeline and used it to make fast money. In short order, he was able to make a down payment on a new house. And two months after he moved in, a special guest stopped by to see the new digs, Marty Krugman. Marty and his wife Fran visited Henry and Karen on the pretext of seeing the new house. But throughout the evening, Marty kept looking for a moment to talk to Henry alone. When the moment arrived, he came right out with it. There was money for the taking at the Lufthansa Cargo Building, more money than any of them had ever seen. And the best part was, it was all cash.

If they could get their hands on it and lay low for a little while, they could be sitting pretty. It sounded great to Henry. The only thing left was to run it by Jimmy, who was just about to get out of prison. The Roberts' lounge gang had suffered greatly without Jimmy's leadership and Henry's earning power. Jimmy was a hands-on leader. He was the mastermind behind lots of plots and schemes,

and he was not afraid to get his hands dirty. Without Jimmy and Henry, the other members of the crew struggled to make money. They tried various scores and enterprises, but they didn't amount to much. And some of the guys had even managed to get themselves arrested. The gang was helpless and damn near insolvent. Jimmy had a lot of catching up to do,

and Henry presented him with the tip about Lufthansa. But Henry couldn't just blurt it out. This kind of thing had to be handled delicately. Jimmy wasn't fond of Marty Krugman, so Henry had to explain the idea in just the right way. Henry made it clear how much money they all stood to make, before he even uttered Marty's name. Henry's approach worked.

Jimmy said he would think about it. And that was probably the best case scenario at this point. With a plan this size, it was highly unlikely that Jimmy would greenlight it right on the spot. The fact that he was willing to keep talking was a good sign. Then a week later, Jimmy wanted to hear the idea from Marty. Henry brought Marty to Robert's lounge, and Marty explained the idea to Jimmy.

Marty's version matched Henry's version. When Marty was done, Jimmy pulled Henry aside and told him to get the phone number for this guy, Louis Werner. A few days later, Lewis found himself sitting in his car in a parking lot at night alone. After some time waiting and probably sweating nervously, another car pulled into the lot. The driver, Joe Manry, known as Joe Buda, told Lewis to get into. his car. Lewis climbed into Manry's car and Manry started to drive them around the parking lot. Manry told Lewis to talk him through the plan. Lewis launched into the story. He said security was tight but by no means impossible to beat. The best time for the robbery was 3 o'clock in the morning.

By that time, the cargo team would be down to a skeleton crew and at 3 a.m., everyone, including the security guard took a meal break in the employee lounge. Practically speaking, the workers were rounding themselves up. All a crew had to do was keep the employees in the lounge and then grab the two guys with the keys to the high value room. The crew could force one of those two guys to help them disable the security measures, and that was it. They'd be in. They would have access to the high value room without raising suspicion or an alarm. Joe Manoran, was surprised. Lewis had really worked this out, but Manry played it cool, and he only said it was pretty good and that his people would be in touch. Then he dropped Lewis off at his car and

drove away. Manry was excited as he hurried to Roberts Lounge to tell Jimmy about the meeting. Joe Buddha's trademark Zen-like demeanor was gone when he walked in the door. Jimmy sat at the end of the bar nursing a drink. When Joe Buda walked up, he was beaming. He told Jimmy that Henry and Marty weren't lying. This was a good lead. And that did it for Jimmy. Joe Buddha knew his stuff. After all, he'd been a cargo agent for Air France. If he said the plan was good, it must be good. After a long silence, Jimmy gave his approval. The heist was a go. Jimmy and his crew started organizing the robbery out of Roberts Lounge while they waited for word of a shipment worth stealing. In December 1978, Lewis Werner called Joe Buda and said there was a shipment of cash sitting in

the vault, and it had been delayed all weekend. That was it. It was on. Next time on Infamous America, it's pretty simple, the Lufthansa Heist. Jimmy Burke leads a crew of 10 men toward a score that they hope will be big and turns out to be bigger. But that doesn't mean the heist is flawless. That's next week on Infamous America. And members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week. They receive early access in the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships begin at just $5 per month. This season, was co-executive produced by Stephen Walters in association with ritual productions.

Research and writing by Dante Flores. Original music by Rob Valier. Audio editing and sound design by Dave Harrison. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer. Find us at our website, blackbarrelmedia.com or on our social media channels. We're Black Barrel Media on Facebook and Instagram and B-Barrell Media on Twitter. And you can stream all our episodes on YouTube. Just search for infamous America podcast.

This show is part of the Airwave Media Podcast Network. Please visit airwavemedia.com to check out other great podcasts like Ben Franklin's World, Once Upon a Crime, and many more. Thanks for listening.