Infamous America - LUFTHANSA HEIST Ep. 3 | “The Heist”

Episode Date: July 28, 2021

In the early morning hours of December 11, 1978, six masked men carry out a masterful robbery of the High Value Room at the Lufthansa cargo building at JFK Airport. The robbers are from Jimmy Burke’s crew, and the heist is even bigger than they expected. They walk out with more than five million dollars in cash and jewels, and earn a place in the record books. 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

In the middle of the night, in the lunchroom of the Levantanza Airlines cargo building, the minutes ticked by in silence. All the workers on duty were in the room, and they were all handcuffed, except one, the cargo agent. His hands were tied with a rope. And as scary as that was, one of the workers lay on the floor bleeding from a head wound. More than likely, they all stared at the clock. They'd been sitting there alone for 13 minutes, as they waited for the time to reach 4.30 a.m.

When it finally did, the cargo agent stood up and wiggled out of the rope that bound his hands. He took a few careful steps toward the door and leaned outside. He checked left and right. And when he was sure the coast was clear, he went to a phone and dialed the Port Authority police. The agent was shaken by the ordeal of the past 90 minutes, and he told the dispatcher that he needed an ambulance. He worked at the Laftanza Cargo Office at JFK Airport, and there had been an armed robbery. 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 Liftonza Heist. This is episode three, The Heist. On Friday, December 8, 1978, Liftonza cargo worker Louis Werner, called the Roberts Lounge Gang. Specifically, Lewis called his main contact Joe Manry. Lewis told Joe that there was a shipment of money coming through the office that weekend.

It was a routine delivery. Currency from all over West Germany had been collected and exchanged into U.S. dollars. Those dollars were being flown to the U.S. by Laftanza. When they arrived at JFK Airport in New York, they would be stored in the high-value room at Lafanzas cargo building. The cash was in the form of small, unmarked bills that were untraceable,

and Lewis estimated that there could be as much as $2 million. They'd been waiting for this moment for weeks. Joe Manry passed the information to Jimmy Burke, the leader of the Roberts Lounge gang, and Jimmy gave the go-ahead. If they were going to rob LaFaunza Airlines, now was the time. Jimmy had spent the last few weeks organizing the high

out of Robert's Lounge. The idea had originated with Lewis Werner as a way to pay off his vast gambling debts. He owed much of the money to Marty Krugman, who was an associate of Jimmy's crew. When Lewis couldn't pay, he pitched the idea of a major heist to Marty. Marty took the idea to Henry Hill, and then they both presented it to Jimmy Burke. Jimmy liked the idea, even though he was not a big fan of Marty Krugman. But for this kind of hall, he could could tolerate Marty, at least for a little while. So as Jimmy waited for Lewis to tip them off about a shipment of money, he assembled his robbery team.

The full lineup will probably never be known, but in all likelihood it included some of the core members of Jimmy's crew, the Roberts Lounge Gang, and a few associates. Jimmy picked the team himself. From his crew he used Joe Manry, Tommy D. Simone, Angelo Cephy, and Lewis Cofora. He added Robert McMahon, who had organized the Air France robbery 10 years earlier that had earned the gang $420,000. He brought in Parnell Edwards to handle some cleanup duties if the plan went well. Jimmy added his own son, Frank Burke, to the team. And lastly, there was the one guy who was not handpicked by Jimmy, Paolo Lacastri.

Lecastri was a Sicilian-born immigrant and a brutal killer. According to Henry Hill, Lecastri joked that he was in the air conditioning business, because, in Lecastri's words, he put holes in people. His involvement was the result of negotiations with the Gambino crime family. Jimmy's crew was aligned with the Lucchese family, and the Lucasies and Gambinos had been allies for years. Both families ran various illegal operations at JFK Airport, so it was in Jimmy's best interest to respect the alliance

and bring in a member of the Gambino family. Jimmy met with a Gambino representative, an ambitious capo named John Gotti. Jimmy told Gotti about the estimated $2 million haul. Gotti said the Gambinos wanted 10% as well as some material support in exchange for their blessing to rob the airport. It was a steep price, but Jimmy accepted the terms.

And Paolo Lacastri was added to the roster to look after the interests of the Gambino family. With the team in place, Jimmy worked on logistics. The main vehicle of the heist would be a black Ford-Econo-line van. The second vehicle would be what was called a chase car. If the gang was speeding away from the airport with the cops on their tail, the two vehicles would split up and the chase car would lead the cops away from the van. Jimmy appointed his son Frank to drive the chase car.

The third and final vehicle was the switch car. If the plan went well and the crew was not being chased by the police, they would stop somewhere outside the airport and transfer the money from the van to the switch car. By the time Lewis Werner called with the info about the money shipment, Jimmy had his team in place, his vehicles in place, and his plan in place. In the early morning hours of December 11, 1978, the team went for the school. Lewis Werner was not working during the robbery, but he explained the steps and the requirements to the crew.

The best time for the heist was 3 a.m. when there would only be a skeleton crew on duty. So at 3 a.m., a black van pulled up to the Lifanza Cargo Building. Four men dressed in black, carrying guns and wearing ski masks, stepped out of the van, and walked up to the front door. Two men remained in the van. They drove it around to a side gate that was secured with a lock in a chain. One of the men got out, cut the lock with a pair of bolt cutters,

and replaced it with an identical lock that was unlatched. The van drove through the gate and parked at the cargo bay to wait for the money. While that was happening, the four gunmen walked into the building. The first step was to round up all the workers. According to Lewis Werner, most would be in the lunchroom eating their meat. meals. There are still conflicting reports about the number of workers who were in the building that night, but most stories say 9, 10, or 11. Regardless, they all needed to be collected. The first was the cargo agent, whose office was near the entrance. He was trying to take a nap when he heard

unexpected footsteps. Before he could react, four guns were pointed at him. The robbers asked questions about the other employees, and it was clear that they had detailed knowledge of the facility. That, plus the guns, encouraged the agent to cooperate. The agent said everyone else was in the lunchroom. The gunmen took the agent to the lunchroom and surprised everyone inside. The robbers forced the employees to lay on the ground, and they counted the workers. Whatever the right number was, they didn't have it. There were a few workers missing. The robbers, the robbers turned to the cargo agent. The man said that as far as he knew, only his supervisor was missing, but he added that there might be a transfer man somewhere in the building. The transfer man

moved things between airlines, so he could be anywhere. He could be in this building or on the other side of the airport. At the moment, the robbers couldn't worry about him. They would deal with the transfer man if they had to. Right now, they needed to get the supervisor out of his office and into the lunchroom. But they couldn't just run into the supervisor's office and grab him. There was a chance he could trip a silent alarm and alert the authorities. So the gang marched the cargo agent back to his office and told him to call the supervisor on the phone. The agent dialed the supervisor and told him that Levantz's Frankfurt office was on the other line, and the supervisor needed to come to the agent's office to take the call. The supervisor said he'd be right there. And he'd be right there.

and he walked into the agent's office a few minutes later to find men in ski masks pointing guns at him. The robbers grilled the supervisor about any other potential stragglers. They already knew that the transfer man might be in the building, but were there any others? The supervisor said they were two, a security guard and a random cargo worker, but he didn't know where they were. In response, the robbers threatened to kill the man's family, and the supervisor offered to help find the missing men. The robbers led the supervisor through the building as they first looked for the security guard. While they searched, they made a discovery in the cargo bay area. The transfer man was in fact in the Leftanza building. He had spotted the black van and walked over to check it

out. When he did, two masked men jumped out and pistol whipped him until he passed out, then they threw him in the van. When the transfer man screamed for help, the missing missing. Cargo Worker went to investigate. When he approached the van, he saw one of the robbers without his mask. It was Tommy DeSimone. Tommy pointed his gun at the worker and forced him into the van. So when the other robbers showed up with a supervisor, they collected two of the three missing men.

Shortly thereafter, they found the security guard, and they herded the four prisoners back to the lunchroom. It was now 4 a.m., and with all the employees trapped in the lunchroom, It was finally time to check on the money. A couple gunmen took the supervisor back to his office. He kept the key to the alarm system in a combination lockbox. He opened the small safe and took out the key, and the next part had to be handled delicately.

The mechanism to disable the alarm was extremely sensitive. Just turning the key to the wrong position would trip the alarm. If the alarm went off, who knew what the robbers might do? They might panic and kill everyone. It was a bad situation, but the only real choice was to help the robbers. So the supervisor steadied his shaking hands, inserted the key into the system, and turned. It clicked, and the first alarm was disabled. The robbers marched the supervisor to the high-value room and made him open the door.

They walked into the outer chamber. The robbers asked if there was an alarm button in the room, and the supervisor pointed to one on the wall. wall. The robbers instructed the supervisors to stand in the center of the room so that he was out of reach of the alarm. There were some parcels in the outer chamber that probably contained money, but the robbers wanted to get into the inner chamber before they truly started celebrating. The supervisor opened the door to the inner chamber, and again, the robbers asked if there was an alarm button. The supervisor said yes, so the robbers forced him to lay on the floor while they kept a gun pointed at him. There were many more parcels in the inner chamber, and the robbers hoped they all contained money. Now, we don't know exactly what these containers looked like, but it sounds like they were small boxes or something like that.

One of the robbers tossed one onto the floor beside the supervisor's head and stomped on it with his foot. The package cracked open like a walnut, and the robbers confirmed that it was full of money. If all the other packages were full of money, they'd hit the mother load. They started loading them into the van as fast as they could. When they took as much as they dared, they ordered the supervisor to lock up the vault. They walked him back to the lunchroom where the rest of the employees waited. The robbers handcuffed everyone, except the cargo agent they'd captured when they first entered the building. They tied his hands with rope.

It was now 4.16 a.m. One of the robbers told the workers not to move or call the police or notify anyone for that matter until 4.30 a.m. If anyone made a move before 4.30 a.m., the robbers threatened to kill the workers in their own homes. And the robbers made a special point to threaten the worker who'd seen Tommy D. Simone's face. Tommy took the man's identification card to reinforce the threat. Then the gang left the lunchroom and for a minute, it appeared. that it was all over. But a robber came back one more time and told the workers not to leave, and then he disappeared for good. The workers sat and waited. They had about 13 minutes to kill

before it was 4.30 a.m. And even then, they couldn't be sure that the robbers had left. But even though the workers didn't know it, the robbers were most certainly gone. When the robbers left the lunchroom for the final time. They walked out to the cargo bay and climbed into the van. They drove away from the cargo building and they were joined on the street by the chase car that was driven by Jimmy's son. The two cars casually exited the airport grounds and headed for the switch spot. The whole thing was calm and cool. The last thing they wanted to do was attract attention by speeding around like maniacs. But even as they stayed calm, they took precautions. They didn't go straight to the switch spot. They drove around for a few blocks to make sure they weren't being followed. When they

were confident they were in the clear, they headed for Brooklyn. The switch spot was an auto body shop in the Canarsie neighborhood. The crew arrived as Dawn was breaking, and Parnell Edwards opened a garage door for the van. The van pulled inside, and there was Jimmy to greet the team. Parnell closed the garage door, and Jimmy asked the only question that mattered. How'd it go? The crew said it went well. There were no shots fired, and the only inconvenient part was rounding up the workers. Jimmy was satisfied.

He ordered the team to start loading the money into the switch car. And as they did, he noticed that the hall looked a hell of a lot more than $2 million that Lewis Werner had predicted. There was a ton of money, the unmarked U.S. dollars that Lewis had promised, but as they kept opening the packages, they found jewels and gold. old as well. Jimmy didn't know exactly how much was there, but he knew it was a lot. And while he was almost certainly thrilled by the hall, he was also concerned. With this much loot, the cops would never stop looking. Even with a careful process of laundering and distribution, the police would

keep a watchful eye out for any trace of the Levantanza money for a long time. Some of the men wanted to count the money right away, but Jimmy said no. The longer the money stayed in the shop, the greater the risk that they'd get caught. The workers back at the Leftansa building had probably called the cops already, and even if they hadn't, there was no reason to wait. It was time to go. Jimmy and his son Frank got into the switch car that was loaded with money and jewels and drove away. Four of the six robbers piled into the chase car and used it as their getaway vehicle. The fifth went to a nearby street corner to be picked up by his wife, and Paolo LeCastry, the sixth man, took the subway home. The last man at the auto body shop was Parnell Edwards.

He was supposed to dispose of the van. And if he had only done that one simple job, everything might have turned out different. Back at JFK Airport, the workers at the Lufthansa Cargo Building did as they were told. They sat in the lunchroom and watched the clock and waited until 4.30 a.m. Then the cargo agent who had been tied with rope worked his way free of his bonds and tentatively peaked outside the room. It looked like the robbers were gone, so he rushed to a phone. He called the Port Authority police and reported an armed robbery. He also requested an ambulance.

One of the workers had been beaten badly and he had a nasty head wound. Within minutes, the building was crawling with Port Authority cops. As the sun continued to rise and the severity of the crime became apparent, law enforcement agencies descended on the building in swarms. The NYPD hurried to the scene and so did the FBI. As New Yorkers woke up and turned on their TVs and radios, they learned of an astonishing event. There had been a heist at JFK Airport

in the wee hours of the morning. The numbers that were being thrown around were crazy. The New York Daily News reported that the robbers had taken $5 million in cash and up to $500,000 worth of jewels, pearls, and gold. Adjusted for inflation, the total haul would be worth a little over $22.5 million today. Apparently no one

told Lewis Werner that his plan had worked and the crew had stolen a life-changing amount of money from his employer. Maybe it was because of an abundance of caution that would be understandable. No one wanted to do anything that might tip the police in any way. So Lewis found out about the success of the heist when he showed up for work that day. Just like you see in the movie Goodfellas, Henry Hill heard about the heist on the radio that morning. His only involvement was in the early stages as a conduit between Marty Krugman and Jimmy Burke. For the past few weeks, Henry had been busy in Boston with a college basketball gambling scheme that would become nationally famous and infamous in its own right. He got full confirmation the next day when he met Jimmy.

Henry and Jimmy were driving to and from meetings with bookmakers when Jimmy hugged Henry with one arm and said, we got it. It was a proud moment. but the excitement lasted literally a moment. The next words out of Jimmy's mouth were laced with paranoia and an undercurrent of danger. He asked if Henry thought Marty Krugman told his wife about all his activities. Did Henry think Marty told his wife about the Lifanza heist? To Henry, it was crystal clear that Jimmy was already thinking about tying up loose ends. The heist wasn't even two days old,

and Jimmy was hinting at the idea of killing Marty Krugman. This thing could get really dark. And in those first few days after the robbery, if there was any chance to pull Jimmy back from the brink, it was lost when the police found the van that had been used in the heist. Parnell Edwards had two jobs. He was supposed to change the license plates on the van and then drive it to an impound lot in New Jersey.

At the lot, the van, the van, would be crushed into scrap metal, never to be seen again. Up to this point, Parnell had mostly been involved in credit card fraud with the Roberts Lounge gang, and he was an aspiring blues singer who used to play at the bar in the evenings, so maybe he didn't fully appreciate the gravity of the situation. It seems hard to believe, but there's really no good explanation for what happened next. To this day, one of the great mysteries of the Lufthansa heist is why Parnell didn't do either. of his jobs. He didn't change the license plates and he didn't take the van to the impound lot. A few days after the robbery, the police found it and it had Parnell's fingerprints all over it.

Next time on infamous America, the investigation into the Leftonza heist begins. As the heat turns up, Jimmy gets more suspicious and he starts eliminating anyone who could potentially name him as the mastermind of the robbery. The bloody aftermath starts 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 and 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 and producer, 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.