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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hi everyone, I'm Eves and you're listening to

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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class, a podcast where we build

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Speaker 1: the time machine and all you have to do is

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Speaker 1: hop in. Today is December eleven, nineteen. The day was

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Speaker 1: December eleventh, nineteen. A group of robbers stole five million

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Speaker 1: dollars in cash and around a million dollars in jewelry

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Speaker 1: from the air cargo building of the Luf Danza Airline

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Speaker 1: at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Most

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Speaker 1: of the people involved in the heist participated in organized crime,

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Speaker 1: and the event has since been depicted in books and films,

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Speaker 1: including Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas. Luftonza cargo workers Louis Werner and

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Speaker 1: Peter Gruenwald knew that about once a month, Liftanza fluent

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Speaker 1: large amounts of unmarked money that was exchanged in West

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Speaker 1: Germany by tourists and military service people. Sometimes that cash

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Speaker 1: wasn't transferred to banks until the next day, when trucks

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Speaker 1: would pick it up to transport it. Werner and Gruenwald

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Speaker 1: figured that that was the perfect opportunity to steal the cash.

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Speaker 1: But Werner had a bunch of gambling debt, and he

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Speaker 1: told bookmaker Martin Kruegeman about the heist plan. Krugman, in

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Speaker 1: turn took the idea to the Luchesi crime family mobster

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Speaker 1: Henry Hill, and word soon made it to gangster James Burke,

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Speaker 1: also known as Jimmy the Gent Burke, Hill, and Warner

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Speaker 1: then went about planning the heist, using information like maps,

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Speaker 1: reports of employees who would be present, and details of

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Speaker 1: the security measures that were in place in the building.

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Speaker 1: Around three am on December eleven, n a group of

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Speaker 1: armed men and a black fan pulled up to the

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Speaker 1: cargo holds loading platform. Several of the men entered the

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Speaker 1: building while the van was driven to the back of

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Speaker 1: the site. They were strained the employees and ordered a

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Speaker 1: supervisor to open the vault so the alarm would not trigger.

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Speaker 1: They loaded the money and jury into the van and

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Speaker 1: drove away, later transferring their hall to other vehicles. The

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Speaker 1: robbery took just over an hour. At the time, it

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Speaker 1: was the largest cash theft ever in the US. The

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Speaker 1: van driver, Pardneill Edwards, was supposed to take the van

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Speaker 1: to a junkyard that the mob controlled, but he parked

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Speaker 1: it illegally on the street in Brooklyn instead. The van

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Speaker 1: was soon discovered, along with edwards fingerprints and footprint. Not

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Speaker 1: long after, Edwards was murdered, and within months several other

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Speaker 1: people suspected of committing the crime were murdered or disappeared.

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Speaker 1: Hill went into the witness protection program and in nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty he began testifying against the people involved in the robbery.

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Speaker 1: Other informants in the case also entered the witness protection program.

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Speaker 1: Investigators suspected James Burke of orchestrating the heist, but there

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Speaker 1: wasn't enough evidence to connect Burke to the heist or murders.

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Speaker 1: He died in prison in nineteen after he was incarcerated

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Speaker 1: for other crimes. The only person ever convicted of the

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Speaker 1: robbery was Louis Werner. Vincent a Sorrow, part of the

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Speaker 1: Bonano crime family, was arrested on robbery charges related to

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Speaker 1: the heist in but he was acquitted the next year.

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Speaker 1: Only a portion of the stolen money was recovered, worth

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Speaker 1: around six million dollars in ninety eight. The hall would

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Speaker 1: be worth twenty four million dollars in nineteen. I'm eve

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Speaker 1: chef Code and hopefully you know a little more about

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Speaker 1: history today than you did yesterday. If you haven't gotten

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Speaker 1: your fill of history yet, you can find us on Twitter, Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and Instagram at t d i h C podcast. You

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Speaker 1: can also email us at this Day at I heart

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Speaker 1: media dot com. Thank you again for listening and we'll

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Speaker 1: see you tomorrow. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,

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