This day in history: The Lufthansa heist happened on this day in 1978.
The Lufthansa heist was a robbery which took place at New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport. An estimated US$5.875 million (equivalent to US$27.6 million in 2023) was stolen, with $5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewelry, making it the largest cash robbery committed on American soil at the time.
James Burke, an associate of the Lucchese crime family of New York, was reputed to be the mastermind of the robbery, but was never officially charged in connection with the crime. Burke is also alleged to have either committed or ordered the murders of many co-conspirators in the robbery, both to avoid being implicated in the heist and to keep their shares of the money for himself. The only person convicted in the Lufthansa heist was Louis Werner, an airport worker involved with the planning.
The money and jewelry have never been recovered. The heist's magnitude made it one of the longest-investigated crimes in U.S. history; the latest arrest associated with the robbery was made in 2014, which resulted in acquittal.
Nine murders were associated with the heist.
The Lufthansa heist is a key plot element in the 1990 film Goodfellas.
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