Infamous America - LUFTHANSA HEIST Ep. 4 | “The Beginning of the End”

Episode Date: August 4, 2021

After the record-setting robbery of the Lufthansa cargo building, Jimmy Burke and his crew are elated. But the thrill of success is short-lived. Within two days, serious problems arise, and Jimmy’s paranoia rises with each incident. The FBI makes a key arrest, and mobsters and their associates start dying or disappearing at a dizzying rate. Thanks to our sponsor, Simplisafe. Get free security camera and a 60-day risk free trial at SimpliSafe.com/infamous Get an awesome box from Bespoke Post at BoxOfAwesome.com and enter the code “infamous” for 20% off your first box! 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 February 1979, two months after the robbery, Lewis Werner was feeling pretty pleased with himself. His audacious plan to steal millions of dollars from the Laftanza Airlines cargo building had actually worked, and he hadn't had to lift a finger. All he did was tell the right crew of guys, they did the job, and now he was reaping the reward. As he and his girlfriend walked out of his favorite bowling alley, a little spot on Long Island, he took particular joy in the shiny new van that waited for them in the parking lot. He had just bought it with some of his share of the money. The money was coming in slowly, but surely.

Even though it was more than Lewis ever dreamed of, it had to come to him in pieces. In fact, it was because it was so much money that he had to wait to collect all of it. But he wasn't complaining. A long series of paydays was fine, and life was good. In addition to the new van, he had used some of the money to take his girlfriend and her two children on a vacation. As Lewis and his girlfriend approached the van, he opened the passenger side door for her. She thanked him, climbed inside, and closed the door. Lewis started to walk around to the driver's side and then he heard someone call out his name.

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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 Lefonsa Heist. This is episode four, the beginning of the end. At about 4.30 in the morning, on December 11, 1978, the robbers were probably pretty close to arriving at the auto body shop in Brooklyn, where they would transfer the stolen money from the van that was used in the heist to a regular car.

At that same time, a cargo agent at the Lefonsa Cargo Building called the Port Authority Police to report an armed robbery. It was natural to call the Port Authority Police instead of the NYPD because the Port Authority Police Department had immediate jurisdiction over JFK Airport. Port Authority police handle crimes that take place at transportation hubs like airports and docks, and their departments are completely separate from city police forces like the NYPD. But in the case of an extraordinary crime like the Lefonsa heist, it was common for Port Authority police to bring in the NYPD, whose investigators might have more experience with big cases like multi-million dollar robberies. And because of the size and nature of the Leftanza heist, the FBI got involved.

And the investigation got messy. According to one NYPD officer, the Port Authority police waited for more than four hours before they called in the NYPD's forensic unit to start working the crime scene. And then the FBI got involved, and federal agents didn't trust local cops. The FBI viewed the local police as corrupt and subject to political pressure. which wasn't a crazy idea. The mafia was, and still is, notorious for bribing police officers, lawyers, judges, and elected officials. Obviously, not everyone in all those groups was corrupt, but the FBI was justified in some of its concern.

And the mistrust between investigators led to communication problems. Each partner agency had its own leads and informants, and the agencies were reluctant to share information. Broadly speaking, it was one investigation that was headed by a task force based out of the district attorney's office in Queens. But another point of conflict was that the DA's office wanted to use the press throughout the investigation, and officers and agents wanted the press to stay out of it. But even with some of the messy stuff behind the scenes, the early days of the investigation were promising. Evidence quickly turned up. The black Ford Econo Line van that was used during the robbery was found just two days after the heist.

It was spotted on East 95th Street in Brooklyn, in a no parking zone. Authorities dusted it for fingerprints, and the results led to a man named Parnell Edwards. Parnell was an associate of the Roberts Lounge gang, and he mostly focused on credit card fraud for his illegal activities. But Jimmy Burke recruited them to handle two relatively easy jobs. After the heist, Parnell was supposed to change the license plates on the van and then drive it to an impound lot where it would be crushed into scrap metal and disappear. Parnell could have finished both jobs before most people in New York were awake, including NYPD detectives and FBI agents.

But he didn't, and no one will ever know why. When Parnell found out that the van had been discovered, he went into hiding to an extent. He hid from the police, but not from Jimmy's crew. He continued to show up at Jimmy's bar, Robert's Lounge, and when he did, he talked about the robbery, and more specifically, his displeasure with his cut of the money. Now that was truly brazen of Parnell. He had thoroughly failed in both of his jobs, which were two of the easiest jobs in the plan. He talked openly about the heist, even though it was in a bar full of wise guys who probably wouldn't talk to the cops,

but he wasn't supposed to say a word about it to anyone. And he was upset about the money, the money that he hadn't really earned. Parnell was endangering everyone, and Jimmy decided he had to die. Tommy D. Simone was chosen to carry out the hit. Out of everyone, he had the best personal relationship with Parnell. They were friends, which would allow Tommy to get close without raising suspicion. But Tommy didn't like the idea of killing a friend. So Tommy was incentivized further.

He was told that if he did it, he would become a made man. Tommy's ambition to become a full member of a crime family won out over his friendship with Parnell. One week after the heist, Tommy appeared at Parnell's hideout, an apartment in the Ozone Park neighborhood of Queens. Parnell allowed Tommy to come inside. They said their hellos, and as soon as Parnell turned away, Tommy pulled out a silenced pistol and shot Parnell multiple times. Parnell Edwards was the first casualty of the Lufthansa heist,

but he wouldn't be the last, not by a long shot. Two weeks later, the calendar flipped from December 1978 to January 1912, And the bodies really started to fall. Just 24 hours after the heist, Jimmy Burke seemed like he was already considering the most drastic measures to keep his crew silent. He was in the car with Henry Hill and asked some leading questions about Marty Krugman. Jimmy wondered if Marty told his wife everything, as in did Henry think Marty talked to his wife about the Lufthansa heist? Marty brought the idea to the crew in the first place. If not for him, it wouldn't have happened.

Jimmy became fixated on the idea that Marty might be a liability. Henry did his best to talk Jimmy out of it, but Jimmy was unmoved. He told Henry to make an appointment with Marty for 4.30 that afternoon, at a place called 40 yards. Between now and 4.30, Henry and Tommy D. Simone hastily planned the murder of Marty Krugman. It would happen later that night at the far end of a nearby parking lot, and then Tommy and Angelo Sepi, another of the robbers, would dispose of him. But Henry still tried to convince Jimmy to cancel it.

Henry argued that Marty's wife would come looking for him, and it could turn into a real mess. But as Jimmy and Henry pulled into 40 yards, the hit was still a go. Then, as they were about to meet Marty, Jimmy turned to Henry and said, forget about tonight. The hit was canceled, and to Henry's relief, the rest of the evening was spent drinking and trading jokes. But the relief didn't last long. Marty started asking about his share of the money.

As Henry recalled, Jimmy gave Marty $50,000, probably in an attempt to get him to shut up for a bit. But that money quickly went to Lewis Werner, who was also asking about his cut. So, Marty kept asking, and it was relentless. But Marty probably felt like he was within his right to ask. He was the reason Jimmy's crew had the opportunity in the first place.

And as a practical matter, Marty had debts of his own. He needed his money. Marty didn't know it, but he already had three strikes against him. Strike one, Jimmy was holding a grudge because Marty had been spending money on TV commercials that should have been used to pay protection fees to Jimmy. Strike two, Jimmy was concerned that Marty had talked about the Levantanza job to his wife. Whether the concern was valid or not, it was real for Jimmy. Strike three, Marty became a pain in the ass about the money.

And actually, there was a strike four. The FBI interviewed Marty. Marty kept his mouth shut and gave them nothing, but it probably didn't help Jimmy's paranoia. In January 1979, a few weeks after the heist, Marty's wife Fran called Henry. She was in a panic. Marty didn't come home the night before, and Henry understood immediately. He confronted Jimmy, or at least he tried to. Henry told Jimmy about the phone call from Fran.

All Jimmy had to say about Marty was, he's gone. Henry was shocked. He knew that Jimmy was brutal, but this seemed especially cold. Jimmy told Henry and Henry's wife Karen to go to Fran's house to comfort her. Jimmy said to tell her Marty ran off with a girlfriend. Fran didn't buy it for a second.

Her husband was a lot of things, but he wasn't a cheater. Fran said she knew all about the heist and the gang's involvement with it. The reason for her husband's disappearance was as clear to her as it was to Henry. Jimmy was covering his house. tracks. And indeed, Marty's disappearance was a problem for investigators. Even if they found a way to connect him to the heist, it was useless now. So the FBI turned its attention to other members of the

crew. They placed listening devices in the cars of Tommy D. Simone and Angelo SEPI. Seppi showed some promise. Over time, his conversations with Jimmy grew more paranoid as they talked about moving money and committing murders. The conversations with Jimmy also proved that Sepi was associating with a known criminal, which was a violation of his parole for a previous crime. The FBI eventually arrested Sepi in February in 1979, but that was a few weeks after they'd lost track of Tommy. In January, the same month Marty Krugman disappeared, Tommy's car disappeared, and so did Tommy. The story of Tommy D. Simone is. is a short and violent saga, and up until now, there's one big piece of the story we've left out,

the murder of William Bentvena, better known as Billy Bats. You heard about Tommy killing Michael Spider Gianco because of a verbal insult, and most recently Tommy killed Parnell Edwards, based on the promise that Tommy would become a made man if he did. But between those two murders, Tommy killed two made men from the Gambino crime family. One was the brother of a girl whom Tommy was dating. Rumors began circulating that Tommy was physically hurting the girl, and her brother went to Tommy's place,

apparently intent on beating Tommy to death. During the altercation, Tommy shot and killed the brother. The unsanctioned killing of a made man, regardless of the circumstances, was a cardinal sin. But by the time Tommy was 24 years old, he'd killed two. Back in 1970, William Bentvena, known to everyone as Billy Bats, finished a six-year prison term. Henry Hill hosted a welcome home party at his bar, The Suite. According to Henry, Tommy ran into Billy Bats at the party.

Tommy was no more than 20 years old at the time, so Billy hadn't seen him since he was 13 or 14. Billy remembered that Tommy had had a shoe shine business when he was a youngster, and Billy asked him if he was still in the old business. The comment was probably meant as a joke, but Tommy didn't take it well. Later that night, he whispered to Henry and Jimmy that he was going to kill Billy Bats. Sometime later, Billy was back in the bar having a drink.

When Billy's guard was down, Tommy showed up and pistol whipped him until Billy looked dead. Tommy, Jimmy, and Henry threw Billy in the trunk of Henry's car, and then drove out to the country to bury him. On the way, they heard Billy pounding on the inside of the trunk. They pulled over and opened the trunk, and Jimmy and Tommy finished killing Billy Bats with a shovel and a tire iron.

They buried Billy's body, and then probably waited for the fallout when the Gambino family heard that a maid man was missing. If there was any fallout, Tommy, Jimmy, and Henry weathered it pretty well. Nothing consequential happened for years, even after they had to dig up the body and move it because the burial site had been sold to real estate developers. Now, most of that story comes from Henry Hill's book Wise Guy that was adapted into the movie Goodfellows. But more recent books suggest the real reason that there was a problem between Billy Bats and Jimmy's crew was that Jimmy had taken Billy's loan sharking business when Billy went to prison.

When Billy got out, he demanded it back, and that led to a confrontation. Whatever the reason, it ended with Billy's body in a shallow grave somewhere outside New York City. And by 1979, Tommy, Jimmy, and Henry were probably justified in thinking that Gambino family had forgotten about it. But then it came time for Tommy to become a made man after the Lufthansa heist. A date was set for Tommy ceremony. somewhere around January 14th. Tommy dressed in his finest clothes and said goodbye to his wife. He got into a car with two men, one of whom was Paul Vario's son Peter.

Paul was the capo who supervised in some loose way, Jimmy's crew, which included Tommy. When the three men drove away, Tommy was never seen again. No one knows for sure who killed Tommy, and we only have vague stories to him. hinted exactly what happened. Tommy was driven to some undisclosed location and then shot. The murder was likely carried out by the Gambino family, but it would have been sanctioned by Paul Vario. While Jimmy and Henry liked Tommy, Paul didn't. Tommy had racked up a long list of offenses in a short period of time. According to Henry, John Gotti's crew killed Tommy, and Gotti may have pulled the trigger himself.

But the reality for Tommy was that his time was probably growing short anyway. Even if the Gambinos hadn't taken the opportunity for revenge, by 1979, a police sketch of Tommy's face was all over everywhere. He was the only one of the six robbers who had been seen without his mask during the heist. And given the bodies that were starting to pile up, Tommy's mistake probably would have earned him a death sentence all by itself. At some point shortly after Tommy was supposed to have gone through his induction ceremony, Jimmy called Tommy's home from a pay phone. Jimmy was anxious to hear the details. Instead, he heard the bad news.

Henry watched from afar as Jimmy's face fell. Then Jimmy slammed the phone down so hard it shook the phone booth. Henry hurried over and asked if everything was all right. Jimmy had tears in his eyes and he said Tommy had been waxed. by John Gotti's crew. It had been a little over a month since the heist, and the scene was getting dark for the Roberts Lounge gang. Tommy had killed Parnell Edwards before Parnell could be arrested.

Then Jimmy had disappeared Marty Krugman, and now Tommy was dead. And while the gang reeled from Tommy's death on a personal level, the investigation into the robbery reeled on a professional level. Too many leads were turning out to be literal, dead ends. For investigators, it was part of a running theme. Evidence would turn up, provide a few leads, and then the trail would go cold. One example was a shoe print inside the heist van. It was from a Puma sneaker. Steve Carbone, the FBI agent leading the investigation, had his team

follow up on the shoe print. He remembered that an associate of Jimmy's wore Puma sneakers. And even though they found a closet full of them, they were unable to match any of the sneakers to the print they found in the van. Later, the NYPD managed to find the van's original owner, but it yielded nothing. The owner refused to talk. The police suspected, but couldn't prove, that the owner had been paid off. It was disappointing. This was the crime of the century, and apparently it had been carried out by ghosts. But even with some dead ends, investigators were confident that there had been an inside man who was involved to some extent, and law enforcement quickly honed in on Lewis Werner. It came down to an administrative detail. One of Lewis's

tasks was to clear high-value shipments for pickup. He did that by finding security personnel to formally approve the pickup, at which point the money would be moved out of the airport by a private security company like Brinks. But that process didn't happen on Friday December 8th. There was a shipment of money in the vault, but security personnel had not been contacted and the money had not been moved out of the airport. And two days later, the money had been stolen. Naturally, investigators had some questions for Lewis. Lewis claimed he couldn't find the security personnel. So, law enforcement quickly developed the theory that Lewis had intentionally delayed the shipment and then worked with the robbers to steal it.

Lewis denied knowing anything about the heist, but there were some obvious and glaring problems with his denial. His cut of the money was supposed to be $10,000. $500,000. He received steady payments, and he wasted no time spending the cash. He bought a new van and took his girlfriend and her kids on a vacation to Florida. And even though he was under suspicion, the cops didn't really have much to go on. At the moment, the only evidence against him was circumstantial. He hadn't cleared the money for pickup. That was it.

So investigators took a little detour. They went after Lewis's friend Peter. Peter helped hide the money that Lewis spontaneously stole from Lafanza back in 1976, and Peter was the first person Lewis approached about the 1978 robbery. In late January 1979, Peter was issued a subpoena. to testify before a federal grand jury. A week later, after he tried to fly to Columbia, he was grabbed by the FBI and turned over to federal prosecutor Ed McDonald.

McDonald had been assigned to the Leftanza investigation almost immediately, and like all the other investigators on the case, had likely grown weary of all the dead ends. But now, with Peter sitting in front of him, McDonald thought he could get somewhere. McDonald made it clear that he would be willing to provide Peter with certain benefits in exchange for his cooperation. It didn't work, at least not at first. Even after an offer from a federal prosecutor, Peter refused to talk. So, in response, McDonald's sent Peter to jail to see if

that experience would incentivize him. Shortly thereafter, Peter called McDonald's office and said he would like to reconsider. Peter was granted immunity, and he testified before a federal grand jury. And with Peter's testimony, investigators were now able to build a case against Lewis Werner. After Peter's testimony, the walls started to close in on Lewis. Investigators talked to the middleman from the 1976 robbery, the guy who was dating Lewis's wife. Lewis had tried to recruit the guy into the 1978 plan, but then changed his mind. In addition, investigators brought in Marty Krugman's courier. Lewis and the courier were longtime friends.

In the fall of 1978, the courier had been sent to collect money from Lewis. Lewis didn't have the money, but he did have a plan to rob Lufthansa Airlines. He told the plan to the courier, the courier told it to Marty Krugman, and the rest is history. So the witnesses against Lewis were starting to stack up. And then the FBI received a phone call from Lewis's estranged wife. Lewis's wife said she had just had a frightening encounter with Lewis. She said he admitted his role in the heist,

and he threatened to kill her if she talked to the police. The FBI went to her house. Because of spousal privilege, since they were technically still married, her testimony couldn't be used against Lewis, but it opened the door to another possibility. Lewis might have talked about the heist to his girlfriend. His girlfriend testified before a grand jury and verified that that was the case. Now prosecutor Ed McDonald was ready to take another run at Lewis Werner. On February 20, 1979, two and a half months after the robbery,

Lewis and his girlfriend walked out of his favorite bowling alley and started to get into their new van. Two police officers shouted his name and then told him he was under arrest. When the interrogations began, he denied everything, despite the testimony against him. So Ed McDonald tried a different tactic.

He sent Peter in to talk to Lewis. Peter said it was over. The police knew everything about both robberies, the small one a couple years ago, and the epic one a couple months ago. There was no way out. Peter said that McDonald could offer a good deal if Lewis would cooperate.

Lewis was staring down the barrel of a long sentence. If he helped McDonald bring in the Roberts Lounge gang, he could get his sentence reduced, if not wiped away outright. But once again, Lewis denied any part in the heist. So the case would have to go to trial. Lewis might have thought he could deny his way, to an acquittal, or maybe he was trying to earn respect from the crew by adhering to the

mafia code of silence. Either way, Lewis was about to get an eye-opening look at his life if he wasn't acquitted, and he was going to have to decide if his silence was really worth it. A judge set his bail at $1 million, and a week later, he was indicted by a federal grand jury for the 1978 Lifanza heist. He entered a plea of not guilty, and the trial was set for a few weeks later, and for nearly 35 years, he was the only person arrested in the case.

But it wasn't for lack of trying. Investigators still followed every lead, even when so many of them ended in dead bodies. By the time the feds and Jimmy Burke were done, the Roberts Lounge gang would be wiped out. Next time on Infomimms, America, Lewis Werner stands trial. Henry Hill sees the bodies begin to stack up all around him, and he realizes there's only one way out, but it'll mean betraying his family. 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 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 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.