January 17 In History: Historical $ 2 Million Robbery In Boston

JAKARTA - Today, January 17, 71 last year or in 1950, eleven people stole more than US $ 2 million (about US $ 29 million today) from armored cars owned by security services company Brink in Boston, Massachusetts. This crime is almost perfect because the culprit was only arrested in January six years later, just days before the statute of limitations on the number of thefts expired.

The mastermind of the robbery was Anthony Pino. He, recruited ten other people to scout the target location of his operations for 18 months, to find out when the warehouse kept the most money, quoted from the History page.

Pino's men initially managed to break into the warehouse alarm system. He claims he can break into the warehouse, break into the security system, and leave before anyone finds out.

Dressed in navy coats and a chauffeur hat like a Brink employee, the thieves enter the warehouse with a duplicate key. They surprised the employees who were inside the company office and managed to tie them up.

That's when the thieves steal cash, coins, checks and money orders into 14 canvas bags weighing more than half a ton. They got out and got into the escape car in about 30 minutes. They managed to raise more than 2.7 million US dollars, becoming the biggest money theft in US history at the time.

No one was injured in the robbery, and the thieves left almost no clues, apart from the rope used to tie the employee and one of the driver's hats. The group vowed to stay out of trouble and not touch money for six years so that the statute of limitations runs out.

The plan almost worked. However, a man named Joseph O'Keefe, was caught and served a sentence of imprisonment for another robbery.

He became a thorn in the flesh for his group. While in prison, O'Keefe wrote bitterly to his colleagues asking for money and hinted he might speak up.

The group then sent a hit man to take O'Keefe's life, but he was arrested before executing him. The wounded O'Keefe strikes a deal with the FBI to testify against his fellow muggers.

The eight Brink robbers were eventually arrested and sentenced to life sentences. Two other people died before they could be tried.

Although the criminals were successfully arrested, only a small part of the stolen money was found. The rest is a fairy tale hidden in the hills north of Grand Rapids, Minnesota. In 1978, this notorious robbery was immortalized in the film The Brink's Job, which starred Peter Falk.