That's one hell of a score. If Stacks Edward's wasn't an idiot and got rid of the van like he was supposed to, they all would have probably gotten away with it.
Tommy DeSimone was great friends with Stacks Edwards they said if you kill your friend you will become a made man.. John Gotti and Paul Vario gave the okay and it was done in Jimmy Burks basement he knew all about it..A guy named Thomas Agro or "Tipp" he tortured Tommy in front of John Gotti and then shot Tommy three times in the head..Tipp also killed Tommy Desimone's two brothers he said why break up the trio.. Jimmy Burke had a mistress she was 16 years old it was Tommy DeSimone sister.. Tommy had two sisters Dolores and Phyllis..Look up "Teresa Ferrara" she was a hairdresser from Ozone Park also going out with Tommy DeSimone before he was killed it's unbelievable what happened to her she was really hot looking 27 years old...Crazy..Stuff
I don’t think so. The rest of them were spending there money like idiots and blowing it on big cars and shit lol. The FBI was already suspecting Jimmy’s crew did it, so that was just giving them confirmation. They probably would have gotten someone to cooperate
And in the end do you know what crime it was that Jimmy Burke was convicted and imprisoned for? Shaving points off college basketball games in Boston. Not murders, not stealing $23 million in today's money- illegal college sports gambling. Al Capone type shit, right there.
A lot of those warehouses are under the jurisdiction of the Teamsters Union, and the mob had their hooks in the Union. They also stole from the docks as well. They also controlled the Longshoremen Workers Union and had inside information from the Dock workers on stuff coming in from overseas.
It’s so cool bc it can never happen again! Cameras , facial recognition , homeland security etc. it’s amazing what went on before all this technology came in .
Gotta love the timing on the quotes. "These guys are painted as sophisticated and intelligent. Most of them were just morons." "Jimmy was an extremely sophisticated, clever person." 😆
They were smart to not believe in the government and knew how crooked corrupt politicians, law was …. While the regular citizen was so brainwashed naive idi0ts 😂..
Well, MOST of them weren't. Remember the Christmas party scene in Goodfellas when Jimmy goes off on one of the associates for buying a Pink Cadillac? Then later on Frankie Carbone shows up with his wife wearing a mink coat. Jimmy knew what's up. But the rest of these guys were morons.
Given that the guys Jimmy had murdered was due to excessive and openly spending he money shortly after the heist, I think it's safe to say that the reason why they never found the money was because it was all spent. There was no way they were going to find it if the bills were clean.
I think his plan was to murder everyone regardless. He didn’t want to split the money and didn’t want them getting caught and talking to the cops. There’s “No honor among thieves”. Henry was spared bc he wasn’t directly involved and was otherwise a good earner for Jimmy.
A lot of money got left with jimmys daughter she married Bruno idellicato from Donnie brasce him n Vinny basciano spent a lot the now boss of the bonnano family Bruno is due out n is allegedly becoming st boss if he’s even still in the life 💯
Stacks would have been killed either way, as Henry claims that Jimmy was whacking guys rather than paying them. 5 million dollars back then is like 20 million today and that is enough to live way comfortable.
My uncle worked at Lufthansa Back then. He saw a lot of FBI there. They questioned him. He said I know Nothing. My uncle is s still alive today at 75 years old
Paul Vario always told his guys to stay away from drugs.. from the Lufthansa Heist he got over $1 Million dollars him and another guy purchased $1.5 million dollars worth of cocaine..Paul had his own junkyard and they had his office bugged buy the FBI.. they were ready to bust him for that I heard the DEA gave Paul Vario a heads-up..The way Henry Hill got busted for selling heroin and cocaine and marijuana nobody from law-enforcement how to clue he was doing it he had the neighbor's kid 16 years old selling drugs for him at school.. also being a mule kid ratted Henry Hill out when he got caught that's when they started watching him with the helicopters and bugging his phone and watching him..He told the 16 year old that he was in the mob and he was part of the Lufthansa Heist..The neighbor Three Doors Down from him a single mother she was cutting the cocaine up in her basement.. Henry Hills Bar that he purchased called The Suite is now a Sushi Bar..If Henry Hill didn't brag to that 16 year old that was it for Henry he would have never got caught selling drugs..That's why he had to RAT..50 other guy's they all got indicted also..Paul & Jimmy they were arrested for something else..
@@felixd.4150 he seems really calm and relaxed. I think he is. Look at his other interviews where the dude is dropping the f bomb every other second lol
I have no doubt that Burke was going to have the rest of the crew whacked anyway, but them going out and spending money like idiots right after the heist I think just made the decision even easier for him.
These guys were far from stupid. Of course, you had a key guy on the inside but everything was planned out and executed almost perfectly. Except Tommy DeSimone was caught on camera without his mask on and Stacks Edwards didn’t take the getaway van to a mob owned chop shop like he was supposed to. The cops suspected Jimmy Burke and the Roberts Lounge crew from jump and they were followed all over the place. The robbery brought down so much heat. The greed and paranoia of Jimmy Burke took hold and almost the entire crew was violently purged. Ironically, the one guy he didn’t kill, Henry Hill was the one who brought him down. Jimmy made lots of $$$ with Henry with the drug business but HH became a junkie who couldn’t be trusted any longer.
No camera but onr of the staff gave a description of tommy ( dumb move) and stacks with the van 😂 ya couldnt make it up,they had all the info gave to them pin numbers everything thats how cops knew it was a inside job straight away,the planning werent rocket science just took balls,but the whole crew was abit crazey anyway..jimmy had a sharp criminal mind but his crew were liabilities i mean even chucking the money about from the proceeds straight after,morons.
Ohhhh yeah. O remember it. I was 20. Gravesend bklyn. Hot babes. GREAT Food! Dirt Bikes! Rock & Roll! Year before was Alll the paranoia with Son of Sam running round! The Blackout! Their Sloagan was FUN CITY! Fond Memories!
I remember my dad taking me to see Goodfellas at the movie house. I was in junior high school in 1978 when the Lufthansa cargo terminal was robbed. It was front page news in every newspaper. What happened was that they went out and took fancy vacations, bought brand new Lincolns, Cadillacs, Buick Rivieras, Electras, Oldsmobile Toronados, 98s. It brought the Mob down. Marty got whacked because he pestered Jimmy for the money, Tommy bought the farm in a ruse that he was going to be "made". Mob lingo for being a full member of the Mafia.
I love it when people give an authoritative narrative and explanation of an event following watching a video on RU-vid only for that narrative to be lifted straight from a Hollywood interpretation of an event (IE,you're quoting from the movie Goodfellas). You comment about Tommy Desimone being killed in a ruse to being a made man but in reality nobody knew what really happened to him. He went missing and was later declared dead. There was talk of John Gotti murdering him etc but none of it has ever been proved and the body of Tommy has never been found so the whole fictional Hollywood dramatisation of his murder that you're quoting is just that - fiction.
It's wild to call these guys morons and say they collectively have the iq of an ashtray, and then go on to describe how they stole $6m and basically got away with it.
The crew knew how to take direction. Even though they had a key person on the inside, they had other obstacles to overcome and the robbery itself was perfectly executed. After the robbery was a different story, Stacks Edwards didn’t get rid of the van and the cops got fingerprints. Guys immediately started spending their share of the Luthansa $$$ and that could’ve been traced back to Jimmy. They should’ve waited 6 months or so to spend it when the heat died down
@@astralwerks4 But they didn't go to Prison for that. And they died because some of them were stupid and not following orders to not buy expensive stuff fact is by Killing them it kept it from being Trace to the Others that would have been Busted
@@jgarganoiii Maury was Greedy just like Jimmy that's why he did it. Problem was who was Gonna listen to Maury . He had no Stroke Like Jimmy or Paulie to talk anyone into doing that
Bro I know they would've probably been busted anyway but stacks deciding to get loaded and just go home after pulling off one of the biggest heists in American history always pisses me off. How do you just not care?
"As smooth as a Swiss clock... with military precision.." If one ignores two of the gang lifting their ski masks mid heist for long enough for them to be identified by at least 3 Lufthansa staff and the getaway van being discovered by NYPD a day after the robbery as just a couple of mistakes then yes it was cool as a cucumber 🥒 😂
The FBI says here that the Mob Crew involved in carrying out the heist had "the collective IQ of an ashtray." While that may be true, the fact is that the FBI also had the IQ of a collective ashtray. An FBI with half a functioning brain would have immediately pulled in the initial leads, such as Parnell “Stacks” Edwards and Louis Werner, and told them they had a choice: they could name all the names and tell exactly what went down and then enter the witness protection program, or they could do nothing and let the Mob eliminate them as witnesses in the most brutal fashion. I'm sure those witnesses would have chosen the former option. And, as part of this, instead of the FBI leaking their progress in leads, they could have planted false information that they had no leads and the that the trail was cold--giving the real players at the top the false impression that all was good. Instead, the FBI let the Mob kill off many of the witnesses and leads. But that FBI itself was too stupid and too corrupt to follow any sound investigative practices. I wouldn't be surprised if they actually failed to follow proper investigative procedures because the corrupt agents wanted their cut of the action. And, for all we know, they did.
Bear in mind that we know many facts now that no one besides the perpetrators knew then. Stacks Edwards was murdered within a week after the robbery. He had parked the black van in front of a fire hydrant, where it was impounded by an NYPD officer because its plates had been reported stolen. I don't know the precise timing of events from that point, but I would imagine that by the time NYPD notified FBI about the van, the FBI took custody of it and lifted fingerprints and then traced them to Edwards, Jimmy Burke found out that Edwards had lost the van and had him killed. IOW, by the time Edwards became a suspect, he was either dead already or very close to being dead.
If you watch the video, it explains that Werner was prosecuted and convicted. The federal prosecutor indicates that they tried to get Werner to talk, but Werner thought he wouldn't get convicted (or that his conviction would be reversed on appeal). So vis-a-vis Werner the FBI basically did what you're saying they were too dumb to do.
There's this thing called burden of proof. The secretive nature of organized crime hinders law enforcement in gathering enough air-tight evidence to get a conviction. Yes, everyone knew Jimmy Burke was responsible for the Lufthansa heist. But proving it in a court of law is a different matter.
I hate it when they call Henry a ‘Wiseguy’. He was an associate at best. But hey, the last man standing gets to write the history, especially when he’s got a media willing to back it up.🤔😎
I have always believed tommy was taken out by Jimmy burke. Not that I know anything more than anyone else but jimmy was getting rid of everyone. He was gonna get Henry, I think he got tommy too and used the billy batts thing as a cover
@@Spookieham sure that's what Henry said....but he was a known bulls*** artist....as far as we know, Paulie never found out about Billie batts....that was supposedly between Henry, tommy, and Jimmy. But wtf....nobody truly knows anything. But Henry was outted several years later for making a lot of s*** up
I think it was both. Jimmy secretly ratted out Tommy to Paulie or Gotti after Lufthansa. Tommy apparently was supposed to bring another van but messed it up somehow lol. He also allegedly took off his mask. Jimmy was extremely tight with Tommy but I mean you can only take so much.
The one question that has always perplexed me is, if the events were somewhat true via the movies is how did Jimmy get away with “killing Made Men”, to cover up the heist, especially this not being sanctioned. Wouldn’t that have gotten him killed?
He made tons of money for them ,I'm pretty sure none of the guys that were in on it with him were actually made i think just associates! If he did kill any made members he was careful not to get caught and if his bosses suspected it was him who did murder them they probably looked the other way because he was bringing millions a year to them!!
This is another great video buddy, I can remember this robbery, I was a sixteen year old kid and I was in place called Portland Bill Borstol, it’s what in America it would probably be called a reform school, like a kids prison and I remember the screw (guard) shouting out at one of the older kids about this robbery because he said it is biggest robbery in American history, but I didn’t realise until years later that it was a mob crew that did the job, but look at how people Jimmy and Paul whacked over the money, nothing but fucking greed my friend, it’s amazing what some people will do for money and I really don’t know why but, over the years I’ve always thought that the cop, john coffee was a bent cop, like I said for some reason I’ve always thought like that. I also remember reading that one of the airport’s workers said he noticed that one of the guys that did the robbery was wearing amazingly shiny shoes and the police knew straight away that it was Tommy DiSomone that was on the robbery haha 😂 because he was a brilliant shoeshine boy so he always shined his shoes really well, unbelievable buddy, A very interesting video well done buddy.
“But throughout the investigation one of the major obstacles in cracking the case had nothing to do with organized crime at all.” “The FBI and the NYPD Did not get along.” Me:👀🤨
I don’t know where this narrative ever comes from. Henry never made himself look like a bigger deal than he was lol. Ray Liotta might have made him look better in the movie but he’s still the same. Just an associate with a regular place who becomes a drug addict and seller later on.
Except that's actually a direct quote from Henry Hill. He's quoted as saying it in Wiseguy and I've heard him say it in interviews too. He wasn't talking about Jimmy though.
@@dougiesherwin9591 He calls pretty much everyone a moron or a motherfucker. There is the odd one he speaks well of but mostly they are described as either psychopathic maniacs or morons.
21:10 Ed McDonald is one of the coolest dudes ever. Straight cop who not only helped break The Burke Crew, he played himself breaking The Burke Crew in Goodfellas, because it's impossible to find anyone more awesome than Ed McDonald to play Ed McDonald. I hope he is retired now, and living happily on a ranch in Wyoming. Thanks for your service, Ed.
@@jpmnkyNo they blamed Joe Coffey, aka the “dumb as an ashtray” guy. Apparently he put the cigar in the guys mouth lol. I don’t think McDonald did anything.
“They had the IQ of an ashtray…we knew the whole story in 24 hours” well why did only one guy ever get prosecuted? Lol I can’t stand fake confident cops
And they would’ve got away with it, had they hired a competent driver who should’ve immediately destroyed the evidence, instead of parking the most wanted vehicle in NYC, in the most heavily patrolled hood in the city, in order to get some poon? 😂 This was what also sealed Tommy’s fate, as he was the one who hired Stacks cause of their friendship.
Interesting and informative. Excellent photography job making it easier for viewers to better understand what the orator/guest speakers were describing. Jimmy Burke's crew were a bunch of amateurish/non professional wannabes. Special thanks to law enforcement/informants/news media personal for sharing their personal experiences/information. Making this documentary more authentic and possible.
The only thing I'll say about the Italian Mafia is it wasn't their default position to kill working stiffs (Thought the guy pesci played showed hebry hill a new gun by shooting some random individual)
Family's lawyer after the heist, "I suggest you find them a nice quiet place to cool." Boss, "Any suggestions?" Lawyer, "I know just the place. It's in Florida. The people there are filthy rich and well guarded against outsiders. They"re be able to spend their share of the money and not be suspicious. They can get suntans and have all the women and cars they want." Boss, "So where is this haven in Florida?" Lawyer, "It's in a nice up-scale community with many crooks. It's called Mar-a-Lago. They'll fit right in."
