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Great Brinks Robbery

View on map:42.367150°N 71.058189°W

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Great Brinks Robbery
42.367150°N 71.058189°W

The parking garage at the corner of Prince and Commerce St. where the Brinks’ building once stood. 6/23/2012 1:59:13 PM

On January 17, 1950, one man waited outside in the get-away car while seven others entered the Brinks’ building dressed as Brinks’ employees. The gang had planned the heist for 2 years acquiring keys and schedules that enabled them to surprise the five employees inside counting money. They bound and gagged them and walked away with $1,218,211.29 in cash and an additional $1,557,183.83 in securities, money orders, and checks. At the time, it was the biggest robbery in American history.

The Brinks’ building on the corner of Prince and Commercial St. has been replaced with a parking garage. But in 1950, it was a central depot for Brink’s armored trucks. Joseph “Big Joe” McGinnis conceived of the robbery and organized the gang and subsequent plan. There were very few clues in the case and, at first, nothing to lead police to the robbers.

However, in June, 1950, two of the gang members, Joseph “Specs” O’Keefe and Stanley "Gus" Gusciora, were arrested for an unrelated robbery in Pennsylvania. They were eventually sentenced to 3 and 5 to 20 years, respectively. The FBI, through informants, began to realize that they were involved in the Brinks’ robbery but had little evidence. When O’Keefe was released from jail and the gang refused to pay him his share of the money from the Brinks robbery, he kidnapped one of the other gang members, Vincent Costa, and demanded his share as ransom. Atonia "Fat" Pino paid some of the ransom but decided it was better to kill O’Keefe. There were several failed attempts before Pino hired notorious underworld assassin Elmer "Trigger" Burke to do the job. Burke was able to shoot and seriously wound O’Keefe, but O’Keefe survived. Once he was in the hospital, FBI agents induced him to talk.

On January 12, 1956, only 5 days before the statute of limitations was due to expire, charges were brought against the remaining gang members. They all received life sentences except O’Keefe who got six years. Astoundingly, the FBI was able to recover only $58,000 of the almost $3 million stolen.

Description

The Great Brink's Robbery was an armed robbery of the Brink's Building at the corner of Prince St. and Commercial St. in the North End of Boston, Massachusetts, USA, on January 17, 1950. Today the building is a parking garage located at 600 Commercial Street.

References

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