Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Zaren Ay, Elizabeth, how are you doing pretty well? You're
Speaker 2: going forward to seeing you this week?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's good to see you.
Speaker 2: That didn't seem very emphatic. It seemed like a kind
Speaker 2: of like a checklist. I said it, how are you?
Speaker 3: How are you feeling? Listen? You know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: I do tell me. I'm gonna put you on the
Speaker 2: spot here. Okay, Okay, I saw something. I thought this
Speaker 2: will be a fun thing to ask, Elizabeth, because it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: There are six US state capitals west of Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: and that wild you just told me. I didn't picture.
Speaker 2: I didn't think about that. Can you name all six?
Speaker 3: Juno correct? Honolulu?
Speaker 2: Correct?
Speaker 3: What's the Oregon one?
Speaker 2: Salem?
Speaker 3: Salem correct? What's Washington?
Speaker 2: Olympia correct?
Speaker 3: Okay, what's that for?
Speaker 2: Two?
Speaker 3: Two more that are west of Los Ane Jelous, Sacramento.
Speaker 2: Yes, look at you. That's the trick one.
Speaker 3: That's the trick one. West of La? What's Idaho?
Speaker 2: But I think it's is it? No?
Speaker 3: I don't know west of La. I don't know what's
Speaker 3: which one? Am I missing?
Speaker 2: Carson City, Nevada? Carson City's west of LA barely. So
Speaker 2: if you go is that you go down by degrees
Speaker 2: west of Greenwich, England. Right, so you go with the latitude. Uh,
Speaker 2: the it is actually the longitude rather, it is a
Speaker 2: Carson City is at one hundred and eighteen point two
Speaker 2: eight one seven and La is at one eighteen point
Speaker 2: two four three seven barely. Like we're talking like it's
Speaker 2: thirty miles at most. Yeah, wow, maybe like more like
Speaker 2: ten miles.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't have even thought that they were like on
Speaker 3: the same.
Speaker 2: Oh. No, I know this because of when I was young,
Speaker 2: I bought up you know, I often mentioned how I
Speaker 2: wanted to be a con man. So the magician and
Speaker 2: actor Harry Anderson from Night Court, he had a book, right,
Speaker 2: and in his book he tells the story about conning
Speaker 2: people in a bar by saying which was further west Reno, Nevada,
Speaker 2: or Los Angeles. And so that's how I remembered that
Speaker 2: Carson City, because I know where Carson City is located.
Speaker 3: Clinos west of Carson City, No slightly, no cards the way,
Speaker 3: Carson City is like a little bit of further west
Speaker 3: than Reno.
Speaker 2: Because Reno you have to come down out of the
Speaker 2: mountains where Carson City is kind of butted right up
Speaker 2: against the mountains.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm looking at I'm like imagining the map, and.
Speaker 2: So it was a difference. And then so what ended
Speaker 2: up happening is the guy who was like one of
Speaker 2: the bar bets before there was Google and you could
Speaker 2: look it up. So they had like one of those
Speaker 2: encyclopedias in the bar to settle bar bets, and so
Speaker 2: he pushed it around to the bartender to announce who
Speaker 2: had won, and then he said that Reno was further
Speaker 2: westn Los Angeles, and the guy had to pay off,
Speaker 2: and then inside the encyclopedia was the money he had slipped.
Speaker 2: The bartender to would say it was reversed. And so
Speaker 2: I always remembered that that's how I remember Carson City,
Speaker 2: because I know it's just a little bit west, and
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, boom, So there you go, there's
Speaker 2: all six ridiculous. Huh, that is ridiculous. I thought it
Speaker 2: kind of fun, man, maps, fun with maps.
Speaker 3: Fun with maps. Do you want to know what else
Speaker 3: is ridiculous?
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 3: Planning and planning and planning and practicing and practicing and practicing,
Speaker 3: and then having it fall apart. This is Ridiculous Crime,
Speaker 3: a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons
Speaker 3: It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred
Speaker 3: percent ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Oh you damn right.
Speaker 3: I am so right. Because we never talk about really
Speaker 3: or especially heinous crimes, patterns emerge, so I mentioned this
Speaker 3: with Randy Lanier. I think some of the details repeat
Speaker 3: themselves across crimes. So they are the drug smugglers, like Randy,
Speaker 3: fast cars, fast boats, outrageous behaviors, the art forgers right,
Speaker 3: audacious fakes, gullible buyers, shady dealers. Then there are the
Speaker 3: car talent yes. Then there are the con artists of
Speaker 3: old and they say that they're about to come into
Speaker 3: money and they've or that they've invented something amazing that
Speaker 3: will basically print money, sometimes literally. We have the Ponzi schemers,
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, investments that are too good to be true,
Speaker 3: because they aren't. They tell wild lies to hide their
Speaker 3: monetary shell game. And then we have the heist crews.
Speaker 3: They plan, they scheme, they dig, they wear wigs.
Speaker 2: They have to trust each other, they split the money.
Speaker 3: They don't trust each other. So what separates each from
Speaker 3: the other are the characters, So the people are what
Speaker 3: make the crimes ridiculous. Sometimes we don't tell stories about
Speaker 3: these types of crimes because the purp is really like
Speaker 3: mentally ill or severe drug addict that's punching down to
Speaker 3: laugh at their ridiculous do that no, And like sometimes
Speaker 3: we get charmed by a ridiculous purp pulling like a
Speaker 3: basic crime. So like remember Pretty Pants banned it. The
Speaker 3: name is what sold me. So today I have a
Speaker 3: heist for you. And I was actually positive we'd done
Speaker 3: this one before. Well, it was called at one point
Speaker 3: the Heist of the Century, like so many that we discuss,
Speaker 3: and the venue seemed familiar, like the target. But I searched,
Speaker 3: and I searched through our case file, archive of episodes,
Speaker 3: through my own notes. Nothing but it just hits many
Speaker 3: of the notes that we've talked about before. But this
Speaker 3: one has characters, and like many heists, it's super cinematic.
Speaker 3: And one of the things that I loved about remember
Speaker 3: Hatton Gardens, the British heist that I covered long ago,
Speaker 3: was that guy Richie like cast of characters. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: have such a cast of characters today. It's like the
Speaker 3: mid Century Boston equivalent.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I hope they have nicknames.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, so who is this gang?
Speaker 2: Right? Who is this gang? Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: We're gonna start with Joseph Big Joe McGinnis. Yes, so,
Speaker 3: Joseph McGinnis. He ran a liquor store in the Roxbury
Speaker 3: section of Boston and was widely regarded in law enforcement
Speaker 3: circles as like one of the dominant figures in the
Speaker 3: Boston Underworld.
Speaker 2: And from what I understand from watching my recent Vietnam movies,
Speaker 2: that used to be a black part of town. So
Speaker 2: he was really he was selling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Well, he had previous convictions for robbery, narcotics violations,
Speaker 3: all these other like Underworld sources said that he was
Speaker 3: totally capable of planning and executing a complex and ambitious heist.
Speaker 3: Then we have Joseph James Specs O'Keefe.
Speaker 2: Yes, I assume he wears glasses.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Specs, as you can guess, wore glasses. Still, he
Speaker 3: was one of the gang's primary strong arm men.
Speaker 2: Oh so, he was strong valued.
Speaker 3: For his nerves, experience with weapons. He had a track
Speaker 3: record of like pulling off these really dangerous criminal operations.
Speaker 2: Do the like a Korea war Vet.
Speaker 3: Spex O'Keefe, No, because we're not there yet. Spec o'keeff
Speaker 3: had a reputation for courage under pressure, I'm like bad guys,
Speaker 3: and he had a long criminal record. He had convictions
Speaker 3: for illegal gambling other offenses.
Speaker 2: By the way, what era are we in.
Speaker 3: We're at late forties, early fifties, Okay, okay, I was
Speaker 3: going to get to that. So Stanley Gus Gussiora. Gus
Speaker 3: was fearless. He was known as the enforcer. So like
Speaker 3: Specs O'Keefe, he had this really crazy criminal record. He
Speaker 3: was known for his experience with violence with weapons. Those two,
Speaker 3: Gus and Spex had worked together on a bunch of
Speaker 3: like criminal enterprises, and they were seen as this natural team.
Speaker 3: They're both like cool headed experience. They were reliable when
Speaker 3: things went wrong.
Speaker 2: Good to have two cool headed enforcers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, then we have Henry Baker. Henry Baker doesn't have
Speaker 3: a cool nickname.
Speaker 2: We call him Henry the Baker, Henry the Baker.
Speaker 3: He was a career criminal. His adult life was just
Speaker 3: like punctuated by you know, spells in jail at the
Speaker 3: time of the heightst that I'm going to tell you about.
Speaker 3: He had only recently been released from a prison in Norfolk, Massachusetts,
Speaker 3: where he'd been serving two concurrent four to ten year
Speaker 3: terms for breaking and entering, larceny and possession of burglary tools.
Speaker 3: So he got out on parole. True, yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: he got paroled five months before the robbery I'm going
Speaker 3: to talk about. So his parole status made his participation
Speaker 3: in this heights really reckless.
Speaker 2: He must.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well see that's the thing we're going to get into.
Speaker 2: That maybe emotionally emotional.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So then we have Vincent James Costa. He was
Speaker 3: the lookout. He got plugged in because he was the
Speaker 3: main guy's brother in law, Adolph Jazz Maffy Jazz Jazz maffew.
Speaker 3: I couldn't find out how he got his nickname, but
Speaker 3: it made me think about how when I want to
Speaker 3: get my dog Montielle riled up, I call him jazz catspond.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he goes nuts jazz cat and he like
Speaker 3: starts running around and.
Speaker 2: Yeah it was like rough housing, not like doing jazz hands.
Speaker 3: No no, no, yeah, he like skidaddles and he runs and
Speaker 3: he jumps on things and he chases Rosie. But jazz
Speaker 3: Cat so maybe that's what happened to this guy when
Speaker 3: you said Jazz would he was your basic solid Boston
Speaker 3: hard man. And then we have Michael Vincent Vinnie Gigan.
Speaker 3: So Vinnie he's our next team. It's not an original nickname, Vinnie.
Speaker 3: He pealed along with some of the other guys. Like
Speaker 3: that's how he got pulled into it. This name James
Speaker 3: Ignation Charity, he's also part of the team. No known nickname,
Speaker 3: but his government name makes me think that he looked,
Speaker 3: as my grandmother used to say, like he had a
Speaker 3: Mappa Ireland on his face. James Ignatius, So he'd done
Speaker 3: time for armed robbery before, not a criminal greenhorn. Then
Speaker 3: we have Thomas Francis, Sandy Richardson's Sandy richards as our
Speaker 3: next guest.
Speaker 2: That sounds like a fifty sitcom star like female, like
Speaker 2: the wife Sandy Richardson.
Speaker 3: Sandy was basically James Fardy two point zero. Like they
Speaker 3: they pulled robberies together, they had done time together, they
Speaker 3: were best buds.
Speaker 2: So a lot of these guys brought somebody with them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that takes us to the driver Joseph Sylvester
Speaker 3: Barney Banfield barn He was called Barney because he was
Speaker 3: a large purple dinosaur. I have no idea why was
Speaker 3: it a reference to racing legend Barney Oldfield.
Speaker 2: That's what I was wondering.
Speaker 3: Banfield Oldfield total.
Speaker 2: Seems like it's right there. Yeah, and to be and
Speaker 2: he's a driver.
Speaker 3: Who knows, but to be completely transparent, who cares, you know?
Speaker 2: Put it there?
Speaker 3: So Banfield, he was known as an exceptionally skilled driver,
Speaker 3: and that made him invaluable during getaways. Obviously, so his
Speaker 3: specialty had been burglary rather than armed robbery, but he
Speaker 3: was known to carry a gun, and that brings us
Speaker 3: to the star of the show, Anthony Fats. Pino Fats,
Speaker 3: a large Man, was a seasoned Boston hoodlum with this
Speaker 3: long reputation as an expert quote case man, so someone
Speaker 3: who meticulously studied targets before striking. He was born in Italy,
Speaker 3: naturalized US citizen, had this long criminal record, deep roots
Speaker 3: in the Boston underworld, and he had a rare talent
Speaker 3: for studying a target, identifying the vulnerabilities, and then coming
Speaker 3: up with a very precise plan of attack. According to
Speaker 3: one gang member who spoke with The Boston Globe later on,
Speaker 3: Pino quote had no equal and was very energetic when
Speaker 3: it comes to stealing.
Speaker 2: Huh, I might have called him dude.
Speaker 3: He really he the guy really liked and respected his energy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't why not?
Speaker 3: It sounds like, yeah, the hoodloman in me recognizes the hoodloman.
Speaker 2: You.
Speaker 3: So, Fat's Pino had been a principal suspect in a
Speaker 3: bunch of major robberies and burglaries in Massachusetts. He had
Speaker 3: been surveilling profitable Boston locations for years, and he had
Speaker 3: fixed his ambitions on the Brinks.
Speaker 2: Building, So he was just always window shopping targets essentially.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was casing the joint perpetually. So he saw
Speaker 3: the Brinks building and he recognized that it regularly held
Speaker 3: enormous amounts of cash and that the security was like
Speaker 3: formidable on paper, but he it had really observable routines
Speaker 3: and vulnerabilities. So you were asking where in time are
Speaker 3: we The initial planning for all this took place in
Speaker 3: nineteen forty seven, forty seven, forty seven, Like, hey, Wikipedia,
Speaker 3: what was going on in Boston in nineteen forty seven?
Speaker 2: Elizabeth? What was now?
Speaker 3: Ask Wikipedia?
Speaker 2: Well, Elizabeth, and Wikipedia informed me.
Speaker 3: So the Boston Trailer Park was established. I don't know
Speaker 3: what that is, but I didn't feel like looking at
Speaker 3: it that. Okay, old John Hancock Building was built.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do know that. John F.
Speaker 3: Kennedy became US Representative for the eleventh Congressional District his
Speaker 3: first election.
Speaker 2: Right, that's when he gets elected, he joins Congress.
Speaker 3: Wally's Nightclub went into business.
Speaker 2: Well, hooray.
Speaker 3: Mayor James Michael Curley was imprisoned and John Hines became
Speaker 3: the acting mayor, And so I scanned some stuff about
Speaker 3: Mayor Curley. I think he may deserve an episode.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 3: He served four terms as mayor of Boston between nineteen
Speaker 3: fourteen and nineteen fifty.
Speaker 2: Four, different terms obviously not concurrent. I mean they were
Speaker 2: just like sporadic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he ran for mayor in every election for which
Speaker 3: he was legally qualified.
Speaker 2: Oh like that.
Speaker 3: He was busted twice for bribery during his He did
Speaker 3: time during his last term as mayor. During its term,
Speaker 3: he also served a single term as governor of Massachusetts.
Speaker 3: Like the guy's a legend.
Speaker 2: Anyway, there's no law in the book says mayor can't.
Speaker 3: Be in prison, right, So anyway, that was Boston when
Speaker 3: Fats was scoping the scene for a heist target like it.
Speaker 3: So he settled on Brinks and he got to work.
Speaker 3: But in nineteen forty eight, after months of early planning,
Speaker 3: Fats discovered that Brinks had relocated to a new building
Speaker 3: at one sixty five Print Street. So they didn't abandon
Speaker 3: the scheme, okay, Fats and his associates pivoted and they
Speaker 3: started a fresh, very painstaking surveillance of the new location.
Speaker 2: A lot of more sandwiches and cars and.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, oh, a lot of like scribbled notes in pencil.
Speaker 3: So Fat studied the building's window lighting patterns to figure
Speaker 3: out when staff were in there, when the vault was open,
Speaker 3: when the fewest guards were on duty, And so he
Speaker 3: figured out that the optimal window for the robbery was
Speaker 3: just after seven PM, when the vault would still be
Speaker 3: unlocked for the evening count, but staff members would be reduced.
Speaker 3: So the gang's prep was like extraordinary in its detail.
Speaker 3: Over a period of a bunch of months, members of
Speaker 3: the crew physically broke into the building on multiple occasions
Speaker 3: after business hours, not to steal, but to study.
Speaker 2: Just to see, like is this window rigged or something?
Speaker 3: They just got in there. They mapped the interior, they
Speaker 3: learned the layout of the counting room and the vault.
Speaker 3: Then they pulled one of the most audacious elements I've
Speaker 3: ever seen in one of these operations. They removed each
Speaker 3: lock from the building's doors one by one, and then
Speaker 3: they had duplicate keys made for each They swapped the locks. Huh,
Speaker 3: and then they replaced the locks before anyone noticed. So
Speaker 3: they sneak in, take the lock out, get a key made,
Speaker 3: bring the lock back. Now they have a key to
Speaker 3: that door.
Speaker 2: So that's crazy.
Speaker 3: This is on the level of those like who built
Speaker 3: scale models and the insides of the vaults inside totally.
Speaker 2: But this was like you're putting back the original lots
Speaker 2: to their key still just for the time while the
Speaker 2: lock is being replaced or you're being key they're carrying in.
Speaker 3: There, they're in there when they're keying it. They're doing
Speaker 3: it that night.
Speaker 2: Oh they're they're keying the lock and yes, wow.
Speaker 3: So they could just walk through like they own the place.
Speaker 2: When the time came, got a janity.
Speaker 3: Specs and gusts, they got their myths on the plans
Speaker 3: for the building's alarm system, and they put them back
Speaker 3: before the absence was even detected. This was the major
Speaker 3: thing there gave them intimate knowledge of how to avoid
Speaker 3: triggering any alerts. They conducted multiple full practice runs in
Speaker 3: the building in the months leading up to the robbery,
Speaker 3: coming in after hours to walk the route, practice their timing,
Speaker 3: identify any remaining obstacles, so they didn't use a scale model.
Speaker 3: They practiced in the real thing completely.
Speaker 2: This is amazing.
Speaker 3: By the time they acted, they'd planned and rehearsed for
Speaker 3: roughly two years. Two years they did.
Speaker 2: Somebody who walked through and I wonder why they're on
Speaker 2: this show.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, okay, so they stole two cars in prep
Speaker 3: for this. One was a green nineteen forty nine Ford
Speaker 3: Steak body truck with a canvas top. That's what they're
Speaker 3: going to use to carry the loot. The other one
Speaker 3: was a Sedan that they were going to use to
Speaker 3: block any cops who gave chase.
Speaker 2: So smart.
Speaker 3: Both were stolen from locations in like the Greater Boston area.
Speaker 3: Let's take a break there. They're prepped, they're ready, and
Speaker 3: when we return, they strike. All right, Zarin, So we've
Speaker 3: got this rogues gallery setting up to burgle the Brinks
Speaker 3: building in Boston.
Speaker 2: And one of the most meticulous and just downright like
Speaker 2: professional crews we've come across.
Speaker 3: Yes, they have gone above and beyond in their prep.
Speaker 3: They didn't just plan any abstract They ran scrimmages. It
Speaker 3: would beta test it totally.
Speaker 2: It feels like something if you were to go criminal,
Speaker 2: this is how you would do it. You know, you
Speaker 2: want to get everything absolutely right, totally, totally.
Speaker 3: So by early January nineteen fifty the gang was ready okay,
Speaker 3: but even then they didn't pull it off on the
Speaker 3: first attempt. According to later accounts, the crew made at
Speaker 3: least five aborted runs to the building on the days
Speaker 3: leading up to January seventeenth, nineteen fifty.
Speaker 2: Five times they thought they were going to pull the job,
Speaker 2: and then they aborted.
Speaker 3: And each time they stopped because conditions weren't exactly right.
Speaker 3: They didn't want to take a chance.
Speaker 2: The ViBe's not right, Yeah, the vibes was off.
Speaker 3: So their lookout. Vincent Costa, that's Fats, his brother in law.
Speaker 3: He was going to position himself in a room in
Speaker 3: a tenant building across Prince Street with a flashlight. He
Speaker 3: would watch through a window for the vault to be open,
Speaker 3: and when he signaled all clear of the crew would
Speaker 3: proceed smart. So on the evening of January seventeenth, nineteen fifty,
Speaker 3: members of the gang assembled in the Roxbury section of Boston.
Speaker 3: Joseph Banfield, the driver, took the wheel of the stolen
Speaker 3: Ford truck. In the rear of the truck, we had
Speaker 3: Fats Pino, Spex, O'Keeffe, Baker, Faride, Jazz Mafi, Gusciura, Gigan,
Speaker 3: and Richardson.
Speaker 2: Quite the crew.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Joseph McGinnis, the financial and logistics guy. He was
Speaker 3: present in the getaway vehicle, and Costa was already in
Speaker 3: his post across the street. So at about six fifty
Speaker 3: five pm, Costa saw the vault being opened and gave
Speaker 3: the flashlight signal. So the truck moves into position near
Speaker 3: the Prince Street entrance. Seven members of the gang Specs, O'Keeffe, Gusciura, Baker, Jazz, Matfi,
Speaker 3: f Gigan, Ferridy and Richardson. They got out and approached
Speaker 3: the building. Each of them had on a navy pea
Speaker 3: coat and a chauffeur's cap that looked just like the
Speaker 3: uniforms worn by Brinks employees. Oh, it's a classic look.
Speaker 3: That's really timeless. Cool.
Speaker 2: I've been looking for one recently. A pea coat.
Speaker 3: Pea coat. I love a pea coat. It's very like
Speaker 3: Beatnick proto hipster Lower East Side artist moment and ps.
Speaker 3: Describing a fashion look as a moment is like nails
Speaker 3: on a chalkboard for me, which is why I just
Speaker 3: did that. I like to hurt myself that. So they
Speaker 3: had these rat outfits on, but they were also wearing
Speaker 3: gloves and rubber sold shoes. Theaters sparkly gloves, they elbow gloves,
Speaker 3: the gloves rubber sold shoes to muffle their footsteps, and
Speaker 3: they were wearing rubber Halloween masks. To be more specific,
Speaker 3: they wore Captain Marvel masks, which basically I saw a
Speaker 3: picture and it looked like Tony Curtis wearing makeups. So
Speaker 3: they were in like some like it hot cosplay. It's
Speaker 3: exactly what I was like. So each man was carrying
Speaker 3: a thirty eight caliber revolver.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is very much giving like Kubricks the killing.
Speaker 2: I'm liking this. Yeah, where they robbed with the clown
Speaker 2: mass they robbed the racetrack.
Speaker 3: Or point break or point break you know when point
Speaker 3: Break came out nineteen ninety one, correct, Yeah, you are,
Speaker 3: they answered in a form of a question.
Speaker 2: What is nineteen ninety FFI.
Speaker 3: Thank you so. Using their copied keys, they passed silently
Speaker 3: through the buildings locked doors, made their way to the
Speaker 3: counting room, where five Brinks employees were at work. The
Speaker 3: employees were caught totally off guard. The mask men herded
Speaker 3: them together, bound their hands behind their backs with ropes,
Speaker 3: sealed their mouths with adhesive tape, and then they forced
Speaker 3: them to lie face down on the floor. No one
Speaker 3: was struck or physically harmed beyond the restraint, so the
Speaker 3: robbers then worked quickly in a fish they stuffed cash
Speaker 3: coin's check securities money orders into these fourteen large canvas
Speaker 3: bags that they had. Yeah, things were going smoothly, or
Speaker 3: were they? Yeah? So Zarin, close your eyes, yes, I
Speaker 3: want you to picture it. You are Sherman Smith, a
Speaker 3: cashier at the BRINKX vault. You and two other cashiers,
Speaker 3: as well as two messengers, are currently bound and gagged
Speaker 3: on the floor of the vault while a crew guys
Speaker 3: in very strange looking masks raided the room around you.
Speaker 3: They made their way into the vault in silence, taking
Speaker 3: you all off guard as they directed you all to
Speaker 3: the floor. They took your side arms. There's a rack
Speaker 3: of shotguns along the wall, but you all realized it
Speaker 3: would be a death wish to make for them when
Speaker 3: the robbers entered the room with their thirty eighths. So
Speaker 3: here you are on the floor now as they scoop
Speaker 3: up their loot, shoving money into bags, whispering to each other,
Speaker 3: knocking over strong boxes. While you do your best to
Speaker 3: memorize an accurate description of the criminals, you note that
Speaker 3: they are all about the same height. You're trying desperately
Speaker 3: to hear them say one of their names, but all
Speaker 3: you can make out are short, muttered, brief directions to
Speaker 3: each other. The crew in the process of trying to
Speaker 3: open a very large strong box. You know since you
Speaker 3: just counted it that it contains one million dollars. That's
Speaker 3: a whole lot of smackeroos. They're having trouble with this one, though.
Speaker 3: It's a toughy one of the best you have. Just
Speaker 3: then a buzzer sounds. The man you suspect is the
Speaker 3: gang leader stomps over to you and rips the adhesive
Speaker 3: tape from your mouth. He rolls you over on the
Speaker 3: floor and asks what does that buzzer mean you stay calm.
Speaker 3: The buzzer sounds again. You tell them it means someone
Speaker 3: wants to get in here. The buzzer sounds, and it's
Speaker 3: the only sound in the room. All work has stopped.
Speaker 3: The robber asks you what happens if no one answers.
Speaker 3: You tell him the person may get suspicious and notify
Speaker 3: the cops. Now you know this probably isn't true. Your
Speaker 3: guess is that it's Bill Manter, the garage man from
Speaker 3: the second floor where the trucks are kept. He has
Speaker 3: to come talk to the messengers sometimes about transportation, and
Speaker 3: you know he probably won't get suspicious, since he tends
Speaker 3: to do this when you are at your busiest up
Speaker 3: here at night, and you all generally ignore him for
Speaker 3: a while.
Speaker 4: He's used to it.
Speaker 3: The gang leader asks where the inside buzzer is located.
Speaker 3: Sounds like he wants to buzz Bill in and tie
Speaker 3: him up too. Oh, brother, you tell him it's just
Speaker 3: outside the doorway before the big door. He steps outside
Speaker 3: to look for it. You hear him walking back and forth,
Speaker 3: his rubber soled shoes squeaking ever so slightly on the
Speaker 3: industrial linoleum floors. You don't hear the indoor buzzer sound,
Speaker 3: but the one outside the vault, the one bill is pushing,
Speaker 3: sounds once more. The robber comes storming back in. There's
Speaker 3: frantic whispering among the men. Your heart is slamming inside
Speaker 3: your chest, but you close your eyes and breathe. One
Speaker 3: of the robbers keeps working on the strong box, pulling
Speaker 3: out a small saw and going at the padlock. The
Speaker 3: leader tells the gang to wait. They'll count to sixty
Speaker 3: and if the buzzer doesn't sound again, they'll make a
Speaker 3: run for it. Everyone is silent the time ticks by.
Speaker 3: Then the leader speaks. He tells his boys to wrap
Speaker 3: it up. Leave the box. They can't open, it's too big.
Speaker 3: They grab their bags gingerly open the vault door and
Speaker 3: look both ways, and then scurry away. You let out
Speaker 3: a long ex Another cashier asks if everyone is okay.
Speaker 3: You all murmur affirmative replies. One of the messengers rolls
Speaker 3: over to you, and you're now back to back wordlessly,
Speaker 3: with just runs to communicate, you untie each other. You
Speaker 3: both quickly rip the tape from your mouths and make
Speaker 3: quick work of freeing your coworkers. Then one of the messengers,
Speaker 3: runs over to the phone and calls the cops. It's
Speaker 3: going to be a long night, damn right. In the
Speaker 3: span of about a half an hour, the gang loaded
Speaker 3: more than half a ton of currency and financial instruments
Speaker 3: into the bags, carried them out to the waiting truck,
Speaker 3: and then drove away into the Boston.
Speaker 2: Night thousand pounds of cash on thousand.
Speaker 3: Pounds of cash. So they drove to a pre arranged
Speaker 3: safe house where they unloaded the bags and divided a
Speaker 3: portion of the loot, and according to later testimony, each
Speaker 3: member received about one hundred thousand dollars as an initial share,
Speaker 3: initial share, and that's like one point four million today
Speaker 3: a whole hall. So yeah, nineteen fifty one hundred thousand,
Speaker 3: you're like, okay, yeah, the whole haul of two point
Speaker 3: seven to seventy five million then is like thirty eight
Speaker 3: million today. Yeah, serious money. So they had already agreed
Speaker 3: that any crazy.
Speaker 2: Missing out on that one million was a big time miss.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we're talking, yes, seriously.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's so like whatever half thirty eight is, ohkait.
Speaker 3: So they'd already agreed that any traceable checks and secure
Speaker 3: would be held or destroyed and then they made another
Speaker 3: agreement they weren't going to touch the money for six years.
Speaker 2: That's super smart, it was.
Speaker 3: That's the statute of limitations in Massachusetts for armed robbery
Speaker 3: very so if they make through the six years, then
Speaker 3: they can't be prosecuted for the crime.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also, I mean the problem often with the crew that
Speaker 2: big is that one of them goes out and spends
Speaker 2: something and then they all get caught. So one person's
Speaker 2: Cadillac purchase ruins everybody.
Speaker 3: They've seen it.
Speaker 2: So come up with that six year windows from all
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it was a clean run except for the
Speaker 3: buzzer thing with the garage man. And then there was
Speaker 3: some other stuff. They left some things behind. One of
Speaker 3: them dropped their chauffeur's cap. There was the rope that
Speaker 3: they used to buying the employees, and then the adhesive
Speaker 3: tape that they put in their mouths.
Speaker 2: But they don't have like DNA evidence that that's the.
Speaker 3: Thing is Like today that would be curtains for them
Speaker 3: because of touch DNA DNA and databases of like rope
Speaker 3: and tape and all that stuff. But back in nineteen fifty,
Speaker 3: these are just like meager traces for the authorities to
Speaker 3: hold onto. So the response by law enforcement was immediate
Speaker 3: and massive, like the front page coverage in the papers
Speaker 3: was crazy. But the police, like the police Commissioner in Boston,
Speaker 3: issued a mobilization order to all precinct captains and detectives,
Speaker 3: like within the minutes of getting the call, because they knew,
Speaker 3: like the Brinx cashiers could tell how much was taken,
Speaker 3: and so they knew the magnitude of this. The Boston
Speaker 3: Police superintendent looked through the emptied vault and was like,
Speaker 3: saw all the methodical nature everything, and he told reporters
Speaker 3: he had no doubt it was an inside job. Really,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, And he figured that like they had the blueprints,
Speaker 3: they must have had rehearsals. Had to be an inside job.
Speaker 3: So within hours, thirteen people were detained for questioning well
Speaker 3: two including two former Brinks employees, both were quickly exonerated.
Speaker 2: And a couple of people.
Speaker 3: Exactly the more they looked into it, they realized the
Speaker 3: inside job theory was wrong. As we know, j Edgar Hoover,
Speaker 3: director of the FBI, personally took over supervision of the case.
Speaker 2: It was so huge. A lot of media, Yeah, there was.
Speaker 3: The FBI, Massachusetts State Police, Boston Police Department. They all
Speaker 3: launched what would become one of the most intensive investigations
Speaker 3: in American law enforcement history. Over the course of the
Speaker 3: following months and years, years, investigators would interview more than
Speaker 3: one thousand suspects, interrogate virtually every known criminal in Boston,
Speaker 3: and then follow leeds in cities like across the United
Speaker 3: States and beyond.
Speaker 2: So they're going out to Detroit and talking abou the
Speaker 2: Purple Gang, whatever left them.
Speaker 3: And exactly the Purple Gang they go after. So the
Speaker 3: physical evidence discovered outside the vault was like frustratingly thin.
Speaker 3: February fifth, nineteen fifty, a Somerville police officer discovered two
Speaker 3: of the four revolvers that the had taken from the
Speaker 3: Brinks employees in the vault, discarded near the Mystic River.
Speaker 3: Oh right, and he didn't realize that. He just found
Speaker 3: these guns and entered in the serial numbers in the database,
Speaker 3: and then when it went on to the wire, then
Speaker 3: someone in Boston was like, oh, hold on.
Speaker 2: That's those numbers again. Exactly.
Speaker 3: March fourth, nineteen fifty, pieces of the stolen nineteen forty
Speaker 3: nine Ford truck were found at a dump in Stoughton, Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: Pieces of the truck.
Speaker 3: Pieces, a subtlene torch and a sledgehammer had been used
Speaker 3: to dismantle it, so the engine block was smashed, the
Speaker 3: body panels cut apart so that they finding the remains. Though,
Speaker 3: because they had like witnesses who saw truck speeding away,
Speaker 3: they figured, okay, so now we know it's like in
Speaker 3: this area, right. But see they kind of threw them
Speaker 3: off by putting it in Stoughton and then not where
Speaker 3: they really were. Some canvas money bags were found discarded
Speaker 3: in a Boston junk yard, but none of these like
Speaker 3: pointed to an individual. So the initial suspect list compiled
Speaker 3: by investigators numbered ninety.
Speaker 2: Three people three the initial list.
Speaker 3: By spring of nineteen fifty, they narrowed it to eighty eight.
Speaker 3: By nineteen fifty three, it stood at forty four. Three
Speaker 3: years down the line, tips came in from the public
Speaker 3: from the underworld. Most of them are totally useless.
Speaker 2: The young Malcolm X was on the list.
Speaker 3: Yes. An anonymous caller on the second anniversary of the
Speaker 3: robbery claimed to know the truth. Seems a man in
Speaker 3: New Jersey was reported to be spending lavishly. They investigated
Speaker 3: eliminated the Purple Gang. As you said, they were under scrutiny,
Speaker 3: but then they got ruled out. Other Prohibition era bootlegging
Speaker 3: gangs were looked into similarly cleared. Meanwhile, the FBI encountered
Speaker 3: a wall of silence from the Boston underworld, which isn't
Speaker 3: much of a surprise. But see, there always rats.
Speaker 2: Exactly, or somebody who needs to, like, you know, get
Speaker 2: out of something or maybe do a favor, because.
Speaker 3: There to sts are saying yeah, no. So the criminal
Speaker 3: sources were like uniformly unhelpful, even the ones who had
Speaker 3: always been helpful before. One suspect told agents quote, if
Speaker 3: I knew who pulled the job, I wouldn't be talking
Speaker 3: to you now because I'd be too busy trying to
Speaker 3: figure out a way to lay my hands on some
Speaker 3: of the loot. He's honest. So the investigation continued with
Speaker 3: like little to no momentum.
Speaker 2: The criminal of that statement is so amazing. I'm trying
Speaker 2: to get my fingers on it. I already got agendas.
Speaker 3: Let's take a break, and when we return, we're going
Speaker 3: to join them and see how they're coming along, all right,
Speaker 3: zaren yes, all right, So here we are Brinks, the
Speaker 3: Great Brinks robberies.
Speaker 2: I'm waiting for a young Ted Kennedy to get called
Speaker 2: into this number twelve. Yeah, so no, November of.
Speaker 3: Nineteen fifty two. Actually, I didn't hear that a federal
Speaker 3: grand jury convened her evidence in the case. Jurors didn't
Speaker 3: think there was sufficient evidence to identify the robbers definitively,
Speaker 3: so no indictments were returned. I mean, they were just
Speaker 3: throwing whatever stuck. The FBI is like, we're not giving up.
Speaker 3: They put pressure on the suspects through surveillance. Remember there's
Speaker 3: like forty four suspects at this point. Question a lot
Speaker 3: of right tax investigations they had, like some peripheral results.
Speaker 3: Jazz Maffy ate off. Jazz Maffy. He got convicted of
Speaker 3: income tax evasion in June of nineteen fifty four and
Speaker 3: did nine months at the Federal Correctional Institute in Danbury,
Speaker 3: Connecticut because he couldn't explain his income. Okay, there was,
Speaker 3: but it wasn't enough to like legally tie him to
Speaker 3: the robbery. In the spring of nineteen fifty six, you know,
Speaker 3: the Massachusetts legislature, spurred in part by the still unresolved case,
Speaker 3: they raised the state Statute of Limitations for armed robbery
Speaker 3: from six to ten years.
Speaker 2: They bought themselves a double mom did out. Yeah, okre
Speaker 2: we go.
Speaker 3: Congress did the same with a federal statute.
Speaker 2: These guys basically changed laws. They did esscially this crew. Yes,
Speaker 2: you know, they motivated lodging, and.
Speaker 3: Their deadline is like getting further and further away. So
Speaker 3: while investigators worked from the outside, the seeds of the
Speaker 3: gang's destruction were germinating from within. Let's say, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: So the agreement to sit on the money lasted only
Speaker 3: as long as the trust and the money held out,
Speaker 3: which is to say, not long. In June of nineteen fifty,
Speaker 3: just five months after the robbery, SPEC's O'Keeffe and Stanley
Speaker 3: Gusciora they got arrested in Pennsylvania for an unrelated burglary.
Speaker 2: But it's still got to work.
Speaker 3: Well, apparently the one hundred thousand wasn't enough. But again,
Speaker 3: they can't touch it for six years. So Specs O'Keefe
Speaker 3: gets sentenced to three years in Bradford County jail. Gusciura
Speaker 3: received a much harsher five to twenty years in the
Speaker 3: Western State Penitentiary in Pittsburgh. So both pleaded total ignorance
Speaker 3: of the Brinks case when FBI agents came to see
Speaker 3: him in prison, but from behind bars, both of them
Speaker 3: were demanding money from the rest of the gang to
Speaker 3: fund their legal defenses. Oh right, yeah, So, according to
Speaker 3: Underworld informants, O'Keefe and Guscura pressed Pino McGinnis, Maffie, Jazz
Speaker 3: Maffe and Baker to kick in money. Most of SPEC's
Speaker 3: O'Keeffe's share of the Brinx loot was already exhausted on
Speaker 3: legal fees.
Speaker 2: Are you that much on legal fees? Back then?
Speaker 3: Good portion of it got some real good lawyers, I guess,
Speaker 3: but not good enough to get him.
Speaker 2: Out of it.
Speaker 3: So after O'Keefe was released from his Pennsylvania sentence, he
Speaker 3: was immediately entangled in further legal troubles because he had
Speaker 3: a separate burg recharge and he had parole violations. So
Speaker 3: he finds himself back in custody they put it. They
Speaker 3: release him on seventeen thousand dollars bail, and that ate
Speaker 3: more into his resources, and he's just bitter at this point,
Speaker 3: he's so mad at everyone else is just sitting pretty
Speaker 3: So he thought, with like, you know, some justification that
Speaker 3: everybody else. They were spending their money while stonewalling his
Speaker 3: requests for financial assistance. So he starts writing these threatening
Speaker 3: letters to the rest of the gang from prison, and
Speaker 3: he makes veiled and like not so veiled hints that
Speaker 3: he might talk to authorities, and the gang they took
Speaker 3: the the these threats seriously. Fats Pino is reported to
Speaker 3: have arranged for a contract killer named Elmer Trigger Burke
Speaker 3: a Trigger Burke, a New York professional hit man, to
Speaker 3: be brought to Bobus to get rid of O'Keefe.
Speaker 2: When you say broad, does he mean like go out
Speaker 2: there and get arrested and get put inside or just
Speaker 2: like we'll we'll figure out.
Speaker 3: This is when O'Keefe was out on bail. Oh okay,
Speaker 3: So Burke goes from New York to Boston, shoots O'Keefe
Speaker 3: in an ambush. O'Keefe was seriously wounded but survived.
Speaker 2: Oh, trigger, you're not going to use and then.
Speaker 3: Burke he Trigger Burke gets subsequently arrested for an unrelated murder,
Speaker 3: so he's out of the picture. So the FBI approached O'Keefe.
Speaker 3: Specs o'keef when he's in the hospital after years of resentment,
Speaker 3: this financial desperation, this near death experience of an assassination attempt,
Speaker 3: O'Keefe made a decision. On January sixth, nineteen fifty six. Now,
Speaker 3: hold on, let's look at this date. So they robbed
Speaker 3: the place January seventeenth, nineteen fifty This is January sixth,
Speaker 3: nineteen fifty six.
Speaker 2: Yeah, their initial six year promise.
Speaker 3: Yes, he told the FBI agents who visited him, quote,
Speaker 3: all right, what do you want to know?
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously you can't blame him. He just got
Speaker 2: a shot contract killer, and he has to know that
Speaker 2: these are the guys trying to rub me. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I did not get away with it, like they'll they'll
Speaker 3: follow through.
Speaker 2: This wasn't like I want your gold watch. Right.
Speaker 3: So over the following days, O'Keefe just sang. He gave
Speaker 3: investigators an absolutely comprehensive account of the robbery. He spilled
Speaker 3: all of it, about the planning, the participants, the execution,
Speaker 3: the aftermath. He named every member of the crew and
Speaker 3: like described in detail their role in what happened. He
Speaker 3: made it clear that while fats Pino conceived of the
Speaker 3: robbery and or you know, organized the surveillance, it was McGinnis.
Speaker 3: Who was the true operational mastermind. He was the man
Speaker 3: who directed the crew. He did the logistics. He took
Speaker 3: responsibility for eliminating incriminating evidence after the fact. He's the
Speaker 3: one who destroyed the gun, the getaway truck, the clothing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the true mastermind.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The case that had defied law enforcement for nearly
Speaker 3: six years was like suddenly cracked open.
Speaker 2: There was more than the Rosetta stone. He gave them
Speaker 2: the map, phone, a magnifying glass exacly.
Speaker 3: On January eleventh, nineteen fifty six, a Massachusetts state grand
Speaker 3: jury issued indictments for eleven men connected to the robbery.
Speaker 3: Next day, on January twelfth, just five days before that
Speaker 3: statute of limitations would have expired, FBI agents arrested six
Speaker 3: of the suspects simultaneously. Oh Nice Baker, Costa Gigan, Maffie McGuinness,
Speaker 3: and Pinos. It was like four am raised yet totally
Speaker 3: first thing in the morning. Two members of the gang,
Speaker 3: James Ferriday, James Ignatius and Sandy Richardson, they had seen
Speaker 3: the arrest coming and so they went into hiding.
Speaker 2: Smart.
Speaker 3: They were put on the FBI's ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
Speaker 3: The FBI eventually tracked them to this apartment in Dorchester, Massachusetts.
Speaker 3: Is not far enough, No, where they had been hiding
Speaker 3: for eight weeks?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Wow whatever, Well.
Speaker 3: May sixteenth, this is when they get busted. Plain clothes
Speaker 3: agents like burst through the front door, taken by surprise.
Speaker 3: The Boston Globe reported that behind these like heavily curtained windows,
Speaker 3: the two men had quote lived eight weeks of tedium,
Speaker 3: boredom and frustration, broken only when their confederate sneaked in
Speaker 3: with groceries and liquor.
Speaker 2: Wow. So they're just in there like getting liquored up,
Speaker 2: playing chess and listen to.
Speaker 3: The radio, the radio for eight weeks exactly.
Speaker 2: They must have hated each other's company.
Speaker 3: Man totally so o'keef. He pleaded guilty January eighteenth, nineteen
Speaker 3: fifty six, almost six one year, six years in a day.
Speaker 3: Stanley Guskiura, he was already in custody in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: Times he get busted, he got.
Speaker 3: Extradited in Massachusetts, but he died on July ninth, nineteen
Speaker 3: fifty six from a brain tumor before he could stand trial.
Speaker 3: WHOA he was young Joseph Banfield had already died of
Speaker 3: natural causes in January of nineteen fifty five, natural cause,
Speaker 3: at the age of forty five. He probably had a
Speaker 3: heart attack. The trial of the remaining eight defendants began
Speaker 3: on August sixth, nineteen fifty six, before Judge Felix Forte.
Speaker 3: It went until October fifth, nineteen fifty six, so from
Speaker 3: August October, when a jury deliberated for just three and
Speaker 3: a half hours before returning a verdict of guilty against
Speaker 3: all eight. October ninth, nineteen fifty six, Judge Fourte sentenced
Speaker 3: all eight of them to the maximum life imprisonment for robbery,
Speaker 3: two years for conspiracy to steal, and eight to ten
Speaker 3: years for breaking and entering at night. Damn McGinnis, who
Speaker 3: had not been physically present in the building during the robbery,
Speaker 3: he's the masters. He received a life sentence as an
Speaker 3: accessory before the fact, and then he also got three
Speaker 3: the other three concurrent sentences. O'Keefe specs in recognition for
Speaker 3: his cooperation. He got a sentence of four years and
Speaker 3: got out in nineteen sixty. He later collaborated with this
Speaker 3: writer Bob Constantine on a nineteen sixty one book, The
Speaker 3: Men Who Robbed Brinks. All future appeals by all of
Speaker 3: them were rejected.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Of the two million, seven hundred seventy five, three
Speaker 3: hundred ninety five dollars and twelve cents stolen on the
Speaker 3: night of January seventeen, nineteen fifty only about fifty eight
Speaker 3: thousand was ever recovered.
Speaker 2: WHOA do you think that they sprinkled it amongst their
Speaker 2: family or they spent it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a little bit of both, you'll see. So
Speaker 3: a bulk of the recovery came from this crazy break
Speaker 3: in the In June of nineteen fifty six, this Boston
Speaker 3: guy named Jordan Perry got caught trying to pass old
Speaker 3: musty bills in Baltimore, and FBI agents traced the currency
Speaker 3: to the Brinx robbery. They found that Perry had been
Speaker 3: given the bills by this Boston man named John Fatz
Speaker 3: Bacelli another that's two point zero So second, Fats had
Speaker 3: offered to pay Perry five thousand dollars to pass thirty
Speaker 3: grand of the stolen cash. Agents traced the trail to
Speaker 3: Fatspacelli's office in Boston's South End.
Speaker 2: So this is all based on the fact their money
Speaker 2: smelled sus Yeah, I don't know about that.
Speaker 3: Well, they say, go to fat second Fats office. They
Speaker 3: tear the place apart. Behind a false wall was a
Speaker 3: cooler that had more than fifty seven thousand dollars in
Speaker 3: cash and fifty one almost fifty two thousand of it
Speaker 3: was confirmed to be Brink's loot. But it was just
Speaker 3: all musty in there, and that's why. So the fate
Speaker 3: of the remaining two point seven million was never definitively established.
Speaker 3: There's this author, Stephanie Chorro who wrote The Crime of
Speaker 3: the Century, How the Brinx Robbers stole millions and the
Speaker 3: hearts of Boston, And she figures that the most likely
Speaker 3: explanation is that they spent it.
Speaker 2: That's what it seems like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they used it quietly, slowly and on things
Speaker 3: it left no traceable records, So like gambling, drinking, legal fees, investments.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So Anthony Fatz Pino, the Originator. He was released on
Speaker 3: parole in nineteen seventy. He died in October of nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy three at the age of sixty seven. Joseph Big
Speaker 3: Joe McGinnis, the Mastermind. He died in prison at Walpole
Speaker 3: State Prison October fifth, nineteen.
Speaker 2: Sixty six, did in prison.
Speaker 3: Yeah, SPEC's o'keef the informant got released, as I said
Speaker 3: in nineteen sixty He died in March of nineteen seventy
Speaker 3: six at the age of sixty seven.
Speaker 2: Now, when Spex got released, do you know anything about
Speaker 2: like if he got back into his community or did
Speaker 2: he have to leave Boston? I mean, like he uh,
Speaker 2: did he die in the area.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know where he went.
Speaker 3: I don't know what he did.
Speaker 2: I was won because he's I.
Speaker 3: Would imagine he got out. I'd imagine he moved far
Speaker 3: far away. What's interesting is a lot of the cashiers
Speaker 3: from their Brinks vault, they moved.
Speaker 2: Far away because it's because they were suspected.
Speaker 3: Well, no, they just it was just too upsett and
Speaker 3: so like when they had to testify. One came from California,
Speaker 3: one came from Florida.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they really really moved just go to like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm out here in whatever town, right. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think they were like I'm out Stanley gus Guskiura,
Speaker 3: the enforcer, He was the one who was extradited to Massachusetts.
Speaker 3: He never stood trial because of that brain tumor. He
Speaker 3: was thirty seven when he died. He maintained his innocence
Speaker 3: to the end. And he was like mad about O'Keefe
Speaker 3: and the confessions, and he was he was just maybe
Speaker 3: that's what took. Henry Baker, the veteran criminal, died at
Speaker 3: Walpole in sixty one at the age of fifty four.
Speaker 3: A couple during the trial, Baker challenged SPEC's O'Keeffe's credibility
Speaker 3: in a petition to the court. He said O'Keefe was
Speaker 3: quote a drug addict, a chronic liar, and one who
Speaker 3: liked to exhibit himself in the nude through that one
Speaker 3: that one in there, plus he's a nudist.
Speaker 2: He air bathed, you know, like and Franklin.
Speaker 3: So Vincent James cost of the Lookout. He got released
Speaker 3: on parole in nineteen sixty nine. In nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 3: he got arrested again on charges of cocaine trafficking huh.
Speaker 3: In nineteen eighty eight he got divorced, and he testified
Speaker 3: in the divorce proceedings that his share of the Brinx
Speaker 3: money had amounted to about one hundred thousand dollars, but
Speaker 3: that his son had cheated him out of most of it.
Speaker 3: He copped to the fact that he used some of
Speaker 3: the money to purchase a piece of land in November
Speaker 3: of nineteen fifty on which he built a house.
Speaker 2: I was curious about that in land speculation.
Speaker 3: All right, Yeah, so he bought some land built a house.
Speaker 3: But you know he didn't have to worry about admitting it.
Speaker 3: Now statute limitations is up.
Speaker 2: And he said, nineteen eighty eight, I mean that's wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Michael Vincent Vinnie Gegan the parole He was convicted
Speaker 3: and sentenced to life in prison, but was paroled in
Speaker 3: December nineteen sixty nine. After the trial, he disputed Keif's
Speaker 3: characterization of mcguinnis as the mastermind. Oh, and he was like, no,
Speaker 3: you know what, Fat's Pino was the true leader of
Speaker 3: the gang. And I'll go down saying that. And Pino's like, nazy, no.
Speaker 2: You're not helping me.
Speaker 3: James Ignacious Faridy the Fugitive. He was released on parole
Speaker 3: in December of nineteen sixty nine. Thomas Francis Sandy Richardson,
Speaker 3: the co fugitive. He was paroled in December nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 3: and he died in nineteen eighty at the age of
Speaker 3: seventy three.
Speaker 2: So they all got out just in time to get
Speaker 2: mad at the hippies.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. Then there's Joseph Sylvester Barney Banfield, the Driver.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: He died of natural causes in January nineteen fifty five
Speaker 3: and was only old. He was one of only two
Speaker 3: gang members never formally charged.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then there's Adolph Jazz Mafi, the last survivor.
Speaker 2: What happened to Jazz?
Speaker 3: He was released on parole December nineteen sixty nine, like
Speaker 3: the rest of them, He was the last surviving member
Speaker 3: of the gang. He died in September of nineteen eighty
Speaker 3: eight at the age of seventy seven. Wow, outliving all
Speaker 3: of his co.
Speaker 2: Conspirators, So Jazz was the longest living. Interesting.
Speaker 3: So the robbery inspired four films, Six Bridges to Cross
Speaker 3: in nineteen fifty five, Blueprint for Robbery in nineteen sixty one,
Speaker 3: Brinks The Great Robbery in nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 2: Do we know if any of these were like hits
Speaker 2: or had stars or anything.
Speaker 3: No, and William Friedkins acclaimed the Brinks job in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 2: Eight, So it really wasn't at all connected to the
Speaker 2: killing which came out I think like fifty six or
Speaker 2: fifty eight.
Speaker 3: There's a bunch of books, Joseph Denin's Anatomy of a Crime,
Speaker 3: which is the basis of Six Bridges to Cross, and
Speaker 3: O'Keefe's own account with Bob Constantine The Men who robbed Brinks.
Speaker 3: The robbery remains, like in the Annals of American crime,
Speaker 3: an almost unparalleled example of meticulous, long term planning. And
Speaker 3: it was brought down not by detective work or forensic
Speaker 3: science or informants developed through investigation, but by the oldest
Speaker 3: weakness in the criminal enterprise, the inability of greedy men
Speaker 3: to trust one another totally.
Speaker 2: And uh, I mean, I don't know if he was
Speaker 2: like a junkie or whatever, but like basically apparently a
Speaker 2: drug addict who the FBI leaned on when he was
Speaker 2: in his hospital. And then like, this worked on Billie Holiday,
Speaker 2: this might work on you probably, so, Saron, what's your
Speaker 2: ridiculous takeaway? I kept listening to hear how these guys
Speaker 2: would end up on this show because they did not
Speaker 2: fit the mold. I was like, this, this is really incredible.
Speaker 2: It must have been just like a stroke of luck,
Speaker 2: like a child walked into a room and happened to
Speaker 2: just find something. But it turns out Keith Specs was
Speaker 2: just like, you know what, I'm kind of a punk.
Speaker 2: I don't to tell y'all.
Speaker 3: Basically, that's wild, isn't that nuts?
Speaker 2: Well, Elizabeth, what is your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3: Again? I was so shocked at the level of planning
Speaker 3: unraveling because of human foibles.
Speaker 2: The years of doings. Let's run it again, guys, Let's
Speaker 2: run one more time, first positions. Let's take it from
Speaker 2: the top.
Speaker 3: It's like they couldn't they couldn't just sit and wait
Speaker 3: the six years for the money, So they're doing crimes
Speaker 3: leading up to that. I mean, that's if they had
Speaker 3: just just sat still.
Speaker 2: Also, I mean, not to have an extra ridiculous takeaway,
Speaker 2: but they got to the point where they were gonna,
Speaker 2: you know, bring in the gunman. The trigger man. What
Speaker 2: is trigger from New York to like rub out Specs.
Speaker 2: But I think they should have had that up top,
Speaker 2: which is, if anybody talks, we're gonna take it out
Speaker 2: on you and your family. So that way that that
Speaker 2: fear of God and fear of violence might have kept
Speaker 2: him in line a little bit longer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you'll note not a single one of them
Speaker 3: waited the six years to touch the money.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying that I didn't think it even would,
Speaker 2: so they couldn't.
Speaker 3: It was I mean, imagine if someone is like, here's
Speaker 3: one point three million or whatever.
Speaker 2: You know, I can make that six years go oh yeah,
Speaker 2: singing past.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Well you have you have, like, you know,
Speaker 3: determination and discipline, a level of.
Speaker 2: Self control because I'm thinking I'm gonna get a big payday.
Speaker 2: So this is not just a job. Your job is
Speaker 2: do not.
Speaker 3: But again, think about what the like. One of the
Speaker 3: common denominators criminal activity is no impulse. I'm like all
Speaker 3: this money and you're like, don't touch it.
Speaker 2: It's why do you make a good criminal? I had,
Speaker 2: I would confederates. I wanted to work alone, and I
Speaker 2: couldn't become like a hit man. There's not a lot
Speaker 2: of jobs you can do alone.
Speaker 3: Oh I need to talk back. Hold on a cycle.
Speaker 3: Let's Dave. How about a talkback?
Speaker 2: I love.
Speaker 5: Hi, Zaron Elizabeth, producer d and all the interns. This
Speaker 5: is Tiffany from Waterloo, Iowa. And I want you to
Speaker 5: close your eyes and picture it. Ridiculous crime dot com
Speaker 5: whatever you have won recently because you are such an
Speaker 5: award winning website. Merch that says rude dude, supporter of
Speaker 5: the high Daddy and lady host.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Oh that's good.
Speaker 3: Hi Daddy and lady hosting a name.
Speaker 2: Now you've been meaning to update the merch so that
Speaker 2: goes to the top of the last.
Speaker 3: Hi, Daddy and Ladys. All right, we're on it. We'll
Speaker 3: get our design.
Speaker 2: Team make a note, design team can draw, get to it.
Speaker 3: H that's it for today. You can find us online
Speaker 3: at ridiculous Crime dot com. We're also at Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 3: on both Blue Sky and Instagram. We're on YouTube at
Speaker 3: Ridiculous Crime pod. Email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail
Speaker 3: dot com leave a talk back like that awesome one
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Speaker 3: by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and edited by
Speaker 3: Dave Kusten aka The Grandpooba, starring Annals Rutger as Judith
Speaker 3: researches by Marissa yacht Rock Brown and Jabbari Electropop Davis.
Speaker 3: The theme song is by Thomas harimetal Lee and Travis
Speaker 3: Delta Blues. Dutton post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred.
Speaker 3: Dave Kusten's wardrobe is by Mister Guy of Beverly Hills.
Speaker 3: Guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshot Mister Andre. Executive producers
Speaker 3: are Ben Adult Standards, Bowlin and Noll, Rockabilly.
Speaker 4: Breath Disquime, Say It One More Times.
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