All language subtitles for Historys.Greatest.Mysteries.S07E13.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

- Tonight, the heist
of the century.

- [John] Over $5 million in cash
and jewels disappears

from one of the busiest
airports in the country.

- [Matthew] Within hours, it's
international news.

They're calling it the
crime of the century.

- [Laurence] Authorities have
little to go on

until the bodies
start piling up.

- [Lis] Every time police
track down a suspect,

that person ends up with a
bullet in the back of his head.

- [Scott] Over the next six
months, you had

eight bodies dropped.

- [Laurence] Now, we'll explore
the top theories

as to who's responsible
for the Lufthansa heist.

- [Claire] The FBI gets a tip

that someone deposited about
$250,000 in a safe deposit box,

but by the time that
they're able to investigate,

the money's gone.

- [John] Before he could be
brought in for questioning,

his body is found
riddled with bullets,

one of them to the
back of the head.

- So who orchestrated
the Lufthansa heist?

[dramatic music]

- [Laurence] Monday, December
11th, 1978.

New York's John
F. Kennedy Airport

among America's busiest.

Around 3:00am, A black van
carrying eight masked men

drives past the departure gates
to the back of the airport.

- [John] JFK is one of the
country's biggest and

busiest airports. But what the
ordinary flyer would fail to

notice is outside
of the terminals,

there are a whole
bunch of warehouses

and those warehouses
are used to store cargo

that's bound for
other destinations.

If you've got electronics from
Japan or wine from France,

they're gonna be stored there

until they can be shipped onward
to their final destination.

- [Claire] Lufthansa is
essentially the unofficial

airlines of European banks.

They are bringing in American
currency, European currency,

security bonds,

and on top of that luxury goods,

furs, Swiss watches,
fine jewelry,

all of this stored at
the Lufthansa warehouses.

- [Mathew] This is the ramp up
right before Christmas.

So they're seeing an
influx of merchandise,

influx of cash,
influx in jewels.

So that high value room,

which normally has a million,

now has $5 million
at least in cash

and about $800,000 in jewels.

Today's value about $28 million

- [Laurence] Later that morning,

it's scheduled to be loaded
onto armored Brinks trucks

and delivered to points
across Manhattan.

Until then, everything
remains under lock and key.

- [Kavitha] The most valuable
goods are kept on the third

floor of building 261

in a place called
the high value room,

which is always guarded
by nighttime guards.

Accessing the high value room
is a pretty intricate process.

There are two metal cages
divided by a steel door.

- [John] To get through the
door,

you first have to get
through the first cage,

that has to be closed

and then locked using two keys

that have to be
turned simultaneously

before you can even
open the next door.

And if this protocol is
not strictly followed,

if it is deviated from in
even the slightest way,

all sorts of alarms
will start sounding

and port authority police
will be all over the place.

- [Laurence] For decades,
it's been an airtight system,

no one has dared to
try to breach it,

but within the hour,
all of that will change.

- [Claire] The van drives up and
six of the eight men get out.

They cut off the padlock,
run into the warehouse

and they seem to have
timed it perfectly

because all of the employees
are in the employee break room,

all having a meal break.

- [John] They hold all of
them at gunpoint

and handcuff them
to one another,

and then they take their wallets

and they're looking at their IDs

and they're checking it
against a list of guards.

So these guys know which
guards are supposed to be there

and they tell the guys
while they're on the ground,

"If you guys make
any false moves,

not only are we gonna shoot you,

but then we're gonna go
to the address on your ID

and we're gonna kill
your whole family."

- [Laurence] Missing
from the list,

the nighttime supervisor

with the keys to
the high value room.

He's still downstairs
in his office.

- [Kavitha] They can't actually
just storm into his office

because he's got a panic
button under his desk

and police would show
up almost immediately.

So they pull one of the
guards off the floor

with a gun to his head

and they force him to
call the supervisor

and he tells him that Lufthansa
is on the phone from Germany

and they'll only talk
to the person in charge.

So the supervisor comes out
to the floor with his keys.

- [Laurence] Now all
the thieves have to do

is make sure that the
manager turns both keys

at exactly the same moment

or the place will be
swarming with cops.

- [John] One of these armed guys
says,

"We know how this system works.

If you have a single slip
up, you're a dead man."

So he follows the
protocol exactly,

gets through the main door,
gets into the high value room.

- [Claire] They see more to
steal than they could have ever

imagined, and they are ready
to take it all.

They start stuffing all of
this cash, jewels, watches

into 40 burlap bags

and dragging them
meticulously out to the van.

And by 4:16,

they've completely cleaned
out the high value room.

- [Laurence] It's
the perfect heist.

In just 75 minutes,

the thieves pulled off
the largest cash robbery

in US history at the time,

28 million in today's dollars.

- [Kavitha] Usually with cash,

you're able to look
at the serial numbers

and track the currency,

but in this case, because
it's older currency

and because it's
coming from overseas,

there's no way to
actually do that.

The serial numbers
aren't listed anywhere,

so this money is
actually untraceable.

- [Matthew] They dust for
fingerprints,

but no forensic
evidence is left behind.

Within hours, it's
international news.

They're calling it the
crime of the century.

These guys just pulled
off the perfect crime.

- [Laurence] One thing
seems highly probable

that this was an inside job.

- [John] They knew too much.

They knew, for example,

exactly which guards
were gonna be on duty.

They knew what time exactly,

3:00am they'd be
going on their break.

They knew the protocol

that was required to
get through those doors

and into the high value room.

So at least one of the robbers

had to be someone on the inside.

- [Kavitha] Two days after the
heist, the FBI gets an anonymous

tip that a low level
Lufthansa cargo agent

named Peter Gruenewald
might be involved.

- [Eric] Peter Gruenewald is
approached by the FBI

and at first, he
really rebuffs them.

I don't know anything, I
don't wanna be part of this.

But they're pretty sure
that he knows something.

- [John] After the FBI questions
him,

He does something that makes
him even more of a suspect.

He uses his employee discount
to buy airline tickets

to five different locations.

The Philippines,
Tokyo, Hong Kong,

Taiwan, and Bogota, Columbia.

Obviously, he's buying
multiple tickets

because he doesn't want
anyone who's on his tail

to find him.

However, all of these
flights are leaving from JFK.

- [Laurence] Gruenewald
ultimately chooses

the Bogota flight

where agents are waiting for
him at the departure gate.

- [Claire] Peter Gruenewald
folds entirely under pressure

and what he says is,

yes, technically I did
organize this heist,

but I did not know
it was gonna happen,

someone stole my plan.

- [Eric] Peter Gruenewald
is driving to work

on the morning of Monday,
December 11th, 1978

when he hears that there's
been this big heist

at the Lufthansa cargo terminal

and it sounds like
exactly his idea

and he thinks, Louis did it.

- [Laurence] Louis Werner

who had been with
Lufthansa since 1968

works as a cargo
supervisor for the airline.

- [Kavitha] He immediately went
and confronted Louis Werner

and accused him of
stealing his plans

and carrying the
heist out without him.

So he demands $300,000
from Werner to keep quiet.

Werner, however,
only gives him $10,000

and basically tells
him to keep that

and that he would
throw him more money

once things cool down.

- [Laurence] Using
the information

provided by Gruenewald,

police quickly turned
their attention

to his would-be
accomplice, Louis Werner.

- [John] His job is to sign

for the money that's been
brought in by Lufthansa

before it's taken away and
placed in a secure bank.

But on Friday, December 8th

when this big
shipment was there,

he conveniently arranged

to be away from his post
for a full 90 minutes.

So when the Brinks
truck gets there,

there's no one to
sign for the money.

That means it's going to
be in the high value room

all weekend.

- [Claire] The FBI starts
trailing Werner

and it confirms all
of their suspicions.

He's paid off all of
his gambling debts

and on top of that, he's
bragging to everyone he can.

He's bragging to his girlfriend
and his estranged wife.

He's telling everyone that
he's involved in the heist.

- [Matthew] So Werner not a
seasoned criminal,

makes a lot of mistakes.

First thing he does, he
spends a lot of money.

He buys a brand new van,
takes his girlfriend

and her kids on a
luxurious vacation.

How do you get this
money working a job

where you're only getting
paid 20 grand a year?

He is the prime
suspect at this point.

So they grab him coming
out of a bowling alley

with his girlfriend.

- [Laurence] The
fed's pressure Werner

to give up his accomplices,

but he refuses to name names.

A trial date is set
for May 4th, 1979.

- [Kavitha] With the help of
Gruenewald's testimony,

Werner is found guilty and
sentenced to 15 years in prison.

So basically within six
months of the heist,

authorities have
their first conviction

and the conviction of
the potential architect

of the whole plot.

- [Laurence] But if Werner was
one of the original planners

and the key man inside,

it doesn't explain what
happens to the $5 million

after he goes to jail.

- [John] Werner says he never
spoke

with any of the other
participants face to face.

He simply got phone calls
instructing him what to do

and then, of course,
he made phone calls

passing information along

and he didn't know any names.

Even though he's the
one who had the plan,

he was not the one
who was behind it.

And in fact, that money
was with whoever did.

- [Laurence] In the months after
the Lufthansa heist,

feds that only someone
in the New York mafia

would be brazen enough

to pull off a robbery
of this magnitude.

- [Ana] New York City in the
'70s

is pretty much run by the mob.

There are five families

and they each have
their own district.

JFK is controlled by
the Lucchese family,

but right around JFK and Queens,

other mob families
control that area.

So there's a little bit of
cooperation among the families.

- [John] For much of the
Lucchese family's existence,

it was known as the least high
profile of the five families.

However, in the mid
1970s, a new Don took over

and he was determined

to make the Lucchese
family more powerful

and he did that by stealing

just about anything he
could get his hands on.

- [Laurence] One of the Lucchese
family's favorite hangouts

is Robert's lounge.

It's a run-of-the-mill bar

in the working class
Ozone Park neighborhood,

a few miles from JFK airport.

- Authorities start to track
members of the Lucchese family

and the activities
around the lounge

and they start to notice
that one of the mafia members

has been spending a
lot of money recently

as if he has suddenly
come into some cash.

His name is Angelo Sepe.

He buys his girlfriend
a brand new Cadillac

and he drops $9,000 in cash

on a brand new 1979
Ford Thunderbird.

- [Lis] Authorities know Angelo
Sepe

as being affiliated
with the Lucchese family

as being sort of a muscle
man for the Lucchese family.

And here's this guy
with his new T-Bird.

So what they do is they
put a bug in the T-Bird

and they think they
have great stuff

because Angelo Sepe is
talking about the heist

in the T-Bird.

- [John] They think they're
onto something big.

Okay, this is the big
break in the case.

Unfortunately, when they
play the tape back later,

the voices are muffled.

Only bits and pieces
can be picked up.

- Angelo Sepe, as a way
to combat the possibility

that his car was bugged

would turn up the radio when
he'd have these conversations,

which would jumble
their surveillance.

The people that were listening

would have a difficult
time deciphering

between whether the participants

in the conspiracy were talking

or was it a disc jockey talking

or was it a song that
was playing on the radio.

- [Laurence] Police know
Sepe as an enforcer,

mob muscle who collects
debts and carries out hits.

Lately there have
been several murders

of potential Lufthansa suspects,

all frequent visitors
to Robert's lounge.

One is Stacks Edwards,

who is known to have ties
to the Lucchese family

- [Ana] Stacks Edwards has
one job in this heist

and that is to
make the black van

used in the heist disappear.

But rather than do
as instructed,

he parks it illegally.

He partied all night
with his girlfriend

and he passed out.

Forgot about the van.

- [Lis] Meanwhile, the cops
all over New York,

I mean, this is the
biggest thing going.

They're looking for that van.

And they find it right in
front of a fire hydrant.

They dust it for prints

and lo and behold, they
find Stack's prints on it.

Immediately, he's
on the watch list.

And the FBI, law enforcement,

everybody wants to
speak to this guy

- [John] Before he could be
brought in for questioning,

his body is found
riddled with bullets.

Five of them total, one of
them to the back of the head,

which is the calling card of
a mob hit execution style.

Within the week, two
more Lucchese associates

turn up dead.

One of them is a bookmaker.

His body is found in a
Brooklyn garbage dump.

Another Lucchese associate
who's called the stick up man

is found in his car slumped
over the steering wheel,

a bullet in the
back of his head.

- [Kavitha] It seems that
whoever's carrying out these

executions is going after
potential Lufthansa perpetrators

before authorities
can question them.

And if there's one
suspect in all of these,

it's Angelo Sepe.

- [Laurence] Authorities
are convinced

that Sepe is somehow connected
to all three murders.

It's possible he's killing
off fellow mobsters

either to shut them up

or to prevent them from
claiming their share

of the Lufthansa loot.

- [Lis] Lucky for law
enforcement, they can bring Sepe

in for an unrelated drug charge.

Now, when they bring him in,

they ask him about the heist,

he says nothing, I know nothing.

It gives them time to
go search his house.

They find nothing.

They know he's involved,

but they just don't have enough.

So he goes away for some
time on a parole violation

and they figure once
he gets out from that,

they will follow him until
he screws up, makes an error.

- [John] After 10 months in
jail, Sepe goes free

and the FBI start
tailing him again.

Then comes a twist
in the investigation.

Angelo Sepe, mob
enforcer turns up dead.

They find his body

in the basement of his
apartment building,

three bullets in his head

and his 19-year-old girlfriend
dead, one shot to the mouth.

Well now, it turns out
Sepe himself is a victim.

That means he isn't the
guy behind the heist,

he's working for someone else.

And whoever that is, wants
him to be silenced as well.

- [Laurence] Though no one died
during the Lufthansa heist,

a trail of bodies has
turned up in its wake.

The FBI is now taking
a long hard look

at one man in the
Lucchese family

cold enough to murder
his fellow conspirators.

- [Kavitha] If there's any
mobster

who wouldn't think twice
about shooting a friend

in the back of the head,
it's Jimmy the Gent.

Most people probably
know Jimmy the Gent

from the character that
Robert De Niro played

in "Goodfellas."

- In 1962, Jimmy Burke is
set to marry his fiance

and a few weeks
before the wedding,

he realizes that she's
being stalked by an ex.

The day of their wedding,

that ex is found killed

with his remains
strewn about his car.

- [Kavitha] Burke is never
actually charged with the crime,

but his reputation for bloody
vengeance starts to spread.

He gets a new job in
the Lucchese family.

They put him to work
hijacking cargo trucks

and he earns the
nickname Jimmy the Gent

because he said to
politely offer $50

to the drivers of these trucks

in exchange for their contents.

- [Laurence] By 1978, Burke
has grown wealthy

so much so that he
buys Robert's Lounge,

making it an official
hangout for him

and his fellow thieves.

- [Claire] Because of Burke's
role in Truck hijackings,

his connection with
the Lucchese family

and his connection
with the JFK rackets,

law enforcement are pretty sure

that he has his hands

in some way connected
to the Lufthansa heist.

They just have to figure
out how to prove this.

- [John] In order to get Jimmy,

they start arresting
anyone they can

who spends time in
Robert's Lounge.

These are people with
parole violation,

minor criminal records,

and they offer pardons in
exchange for information

that might lead to
the arrest of Jimmy.

One low level bookie

confesses that he is
in Robert's Lounge

the night after the heist

and that Jimmy comes in,
waving a bunch of cash around,

saying, "Let's have a
drink on Lufthansa."

- [Kavitha] Jimmy is well aware
that the cops are following him.

There's one time where there's
an undercover cop at the bar

and Jimmy orders
himself a round of drinks

and a glass of milk for the cop.

There's another time when
they had bugged his car

and he found it and
shot it three times.

- [Claire] He is so convinced
that he's invincible,

that he's really toying
with law enforcement.

He knows that there are
people surveilling his house.

So he gets up in the
middle of the night

and he will go on
these little joy rides

and he knows that these guys

have to follow him
wherever he goes.

He just drives around
the neighborhood

and when he comes back,

he waves and laughs and just
heads back in and goes to bed.

- [Laurence] Burke's cockiness
may come from the fact that

he appears to have
an airtight alibi

for the early hours of
December 11th, 1978.

- [John] He's arrested in
Georgia for possession of

cocaine and he's sentenced to
three months in a rehab program.

He does those three months

in the community
treatment program

in Times Square in Manhattan.

And he's supposed to
be there all the time

and he's checked on
on regular intervals.

That's where he is on
the night of the heist.

So how could he possibly
be involved in it?

- [Laurence] And
every time authorities

find a potential new
witness to finger Burke,

they end up dead.

- [Kavitha] By the summer of
1979,

nine more suspected people

connected with the Lufthansa
heist have been found dead.

Authorities still find
no clues left behind

at these murder scenes,

but because associates
of the Lucchese family

and of Burke's keep
turning up dead,

they think that maybe
he's becoming paranoid

and is continuing
to cover his tracks.

- [Laurence] Then in May, 1980,

the Lufthansa case
takes a dramatic turn.

Longtime Burke
associate Henry Hill

is arrested on
serious drug charges.

Under interrogation, he
offers to make a deal.

- [John] According to Henry
Hill,

Burke is the guy who planned
the heist, executed it

and now has been bumping off

anybody who might be
associated with it.

Hill is afraid that he
is on Burke's hit list

and that he's going to be next.

So better that Burke get put
away than he ends up dead.

Burke isn't just
knocking people off

because he doesn't want
them testifying against him,

he's doing it because
everyone who is killed,

that's one less person
to share the loot.

- [Claire] Hill alleges that
Burke snuck out of the treatment

center in between the bed checks

and on the night of the heist,

he is in fact one of
the six men there.

- [Laurence] Hill's
testimony syncs up

with everything else the
Feds have discovered.

The trouble is, it's
still not enough

to pin the heist on Burke.

- [John] Law enforcement
can't find anyone

to corroborate Hill's claims

and added to that,
Hill's doing this

in exchange for a reduced
sentence and federal protection.

So this calls into question

the sincerity of
everything he says.

- [Laurence] Still
authorities are certain

they have their man in Burke.

They just need to find another
way to bring him to justice.

- [Kavitha] Authorities Start
questioning Henry Hill

about his own alibi
for that night

and he says he can't possibly

have been involved in the heist

because he was off
at Boston College,

conducting a point
shaving scheme

under the orders of Burke.

As part of the scheme, Burke
and Hill would pay players

to throw certain plays or score
a certain number of points

in order to get within
a certain scoring range.

That allows gamblers to then

place high value
bets on these games

and reap huge monetary benefits.

- [Ana] In 1982, Jimmy
Burke is convicted

of racketeering
and sports betting

and he's sent away for 12 years.

But 12 years isn't enough time
for Henry Hill to feel safe,

so he provides the authorities

with more information
on another crime

to try and keep Jimmy
Burke behind bars.

'Cause the minute Jimmy gets
out, Henry's a dead man.

- [Claire] Burke is sent to
prison, but not for the

Lufthansa heist. It's a classic
mob history story.

You've got someone, you
can't pin a crime on them,

but you can pin other things.

The problem is,

still means that the
original crime is unsolved.

- [John] If all we have to go on
is Henry Hill's testimony,

it seems like the
Lufthansa case is closed.

But there's one nagging
concern about this,

Burke is not a mob heavyweight.

Even if Burke is the one
who plans the robbery

and executes the robbery,

he's gotta get the blessing

of somebody higher up
in the organization

and whoever that is

might be the one who's made off

with the missing
millions of dollars.

- [Laurence] The Lucchese crime
family

rules over the borough of Queens

and nothing happens
on their turf

unless it's sanctioned
from the top.

So after the Lufthansa
heist in 1978,

feds are convinced that
while low-level mobsters

might have carried out
the actual robbery,

the $5 million payload travels

much further up the food chain.

To get it back,

they'll need to bring down
the Godfather himself.

- [Matthew] Crime families
operate and are successful for

so long because you have
this separation.

The guy that's ordering
these crimes to be committed

is so far separated

from the people that
actually committing crimes

that when the FBI
and the local police

are making these arrests,

they can only get
this bottom level,

but the people above them
that are pulling the strings,

they never go to jail.

- [Kavitha] This time the feds
have a secret weapon.

They have Henry Hill
who's turned informant

and is in the witness
protection program.

And he's worked for the
Lucchese family for decades.

According to Hill, the Lucchese
family have their hands in

all kinds of industries
across New York,

trucking, construction,
the garment industry,

and they make a lot of
money shipping stolen goods

and shaking down transportation
and union organizations.

- The Lucchese family used to be

one of the smaller families,

but now under this Don,

with the increased amount
of smuggling and stealing,

not just from JFK, but also
from LaGuardia and Newark,

they've become one
of the strongest

and most powerful
families in the mob.

- [John] The head of the
Lucchese family is Don Antonio

Corallo, better
known as Tony Ducks.

He's been in charge of
the family since 1974

and he gets his nickname

because of his uncanny ability
to duck law enforcement.

Part of what makes
him so hard to arrest

is he's got 500 foot
soldiers under his command.

He also rarely leaves
his mansion in Queens

where he's surrounded by
a two story brick wall,

bodyguards and attack dogs.

- [Kavitha] Authorities already
pretty much know this,

but Henry Hill confirms

that while the Lufthansa
heist might have been

Jimmy Burke's idea
or his brainchild,

he still needs
the Don's blessing

and Hill confirms that Tony
Ducks

gave him his blessing
to carry out the heist

in exchange for 50% of the loot.

- [Laurence] According to Hill,

Tony Ducks isn't just
doling out blessings

and collecting money,

he's organizing every
detail of the operation.

- [John] At the time of the
heist,

Jimmy Burke is serving
time in the rehab center

in Times Square in New York.

The thing is, he should be
serving that time in Georgia,

because after all,

that's where he was busted
for cocaine possession.

Agents are wondering
whether it's Tony Ducks

who managed to
arrange to have Burke

serve his time in New
York rather than Georgia.

So if that's the case,

then really Tony
Ducks is the one

who's in control
of this operation

and not Jimmy the Gent.

- [Lis] In addition to
Hill's testimony,

they also have the testimony
of the Don's chauffer

who says that just
days after the heist,

the Don was already
planning the execution

of many of the people involved.

- [Kavitha] Nobody actually
speaks to the Don himself

directly except for
his lieutenants.

There are several levels of men

before the order of a hit
gets to the actual assassin,

and that's by design.

That's so that there are
many levels of protection

so that you can't
trace that order

directly back to the Don.

- [Laurence] If the Feds
can't nail Tony Ducks

on the murders and
the heist itself,

there's only one other
way authorities think

they can bring him down.

By finding the money.

- [John] Authorities already
know

about the network that Tony
Ducks uses to distribute money,

but he seems to be behaving
with more caution than usual.

Understandable after
a heist of this size.

The way his network operates is
that the cash first comes

to his walled
compound in Queens.

Then he takes his cut,

which is gonna be laundered
through his various businesses,

but the rest of it is parceled
out in small quantities

and carried via couriers

to various locations
in the United States.

- [Kavitha] One of authorities
major leads

points them towards
a lieutenant's house

in Hollywood, Florida

where they believe
couriers have brought

a lot of this money to

and they're sent back to New
York to make that run again.

According to Henry Hill,

once these couriers have either
outlived their usefulness

or might be getting too
close and might turn,

Tony Ducks orders
their assassination.

- [John] Once the money
gets to Florida,

where it goes is anyone's guess.

The FBI gets a tip
that 250,000 of it

can be found in a
safe deposit box

in a Florida bank in Miami,

but by the time the FBI gets
there, it's been cleaned out.

- [Lis] Law enforcement
suspects at that point

that Tony Ducks has laundered

all of this money through
legitimate businesses.

He's got a flower shop,
he's got taxi stands,

he's got bars and restaurants,

and that money was
probably already laundered

and will never be found.

- [Matthew] At this point, the
only person ever arrested

and convicted of the Lufthansa
heist is Louis Werner.

Tony Ducks ducks
another one here,

and it's never pinned to him.

They find none of the cash

and no evidence to
bring him into court.

- [Laurence] It is been
almost seven years,

and the FBI is no closer to
tracking down the Mastermind

or the $5 million in cash from
the Lufthansa heist of 1978.

- [Claire] The trail has gone
completely cold by the

early 1980s. Not only can the
Feds not find the money,

but key witnesses
refuse to talk.

Pretty much every suspect
that they have in mind

has been killed,

and there's really no way to
connect the remaining players

to the crime itself.

Things start to change though,

when in 1985, there's
a new mob boss

on the rise in the
Gambino family,

who Feds realize might have had
a hand in Lufthansa as well.

- [Scott] John Gotti killed his
way to power in December of 1985

by organizing the assassination
of his predecessor,

Paul Castellano,

in a very high profile
gangland execution

carried out in midtown Manhattan

during the Christmas
shopping season.

- [Kavitha] The reason Gotti
felt that he had to murder his

godfather is because he's
totally anti-drugs

and doesn't want
the Gambino family

involved in narcotics at all.

Gotti and his crew had been
indicted on a drug charge,

so he's now afraid that
when the Don finds out,

he'll have him killed.

So it's basically
a situation where

Gotti whacks godfather before
he gets whacked himself.

- [Laurence] Now,
with narcotics sales

sanctioned from the very top,

the Gambino family becomes
one of the most profitable

and violent gangs
in New York City.

- [Matthew] Under the control
now of John Gotti as the

Godfather, the Lucchese family
expand their criminal empire,

this is the time where they
start to make huge profits.

But also, John Gotti is not a
low-key under the radar guy.

The Dapper John, like he's
seen a newspaper all the time,

he gets a second nickname
and that's the Teflon Don

because every time
they came after him

for these different crimes,

it just kind of slid off of him.

- [Claire] Gotti's flashy
lifestyle

definitely draws the
attention of law enforcement,

and almost immediately
after coming to power,

Feds start wiretapping,
bugging his establishments,

trying to get
information about him

in order to bring him and
the Gambino family down.

- [John] Thanks to those
wiretaps,

in 1986, Gotti is arrested

on charges of racketeering
and extortion.

As authorities are building
their case against Gotti,

another thing comes up.

It turns out that Gotti
received a huge cut

of the take from
the Lufthansa heist.

- [Laurence] This comes
as a surprise to the FBI.

The agency knows the Lucchese
mob is behind the heist,

but never suspected they
could have been cooperating

with a rival family.

- [Kavitha] The Gambino family
holds a lot of sway

in parts of South
Queens near JFK,

which is territory that
they basically share

with the Lucchese family.

So it would've
been pretty natural

for Gotti and the Gambino family

to be key players in
the Lufthansa heist.

- [Matthew] During the course
of the investigation,

they find out that Gotti is
integral as part of the heist.

They use his garage
as a way point

to transfer the money from
the robbery to a switch car.

And then Gotti offers his other
services to crush that van

to destroy evidence.

- [Scott] Stacks Edwards got
delayed and the car got

discovered. But initially the
plan for John Gotti

was that him and his crew

were gonna get rid of
the getaway vehicle.

- [John] That scrap yard is
owned by the Gambinos.

This suggests that
the Gambino family

has been involved in the
heist from the very beginning.

Allegedly Gotti's take
from the Lufthansa heist

comes to around $200,000.

- [Laurence] Considering that
other participants

collect only a small portion
of the money they're owed,

Gotti's whopping payout suggest

he played a major role
behind the scenes.

- [Kavitha] If Gotti did help
haul the Lufthansa Loot,

it's likely that it was shuttled

throughout the various
Gambino family activities,

including high level narcotics.

So whether it's the Lucchese
family or the Gambino family,

the result is the same.

The money is
nowhere to be found.

In 1992, Gotti is
finally convicted

not for the Lufthansa heist,

but on various
conspiracy charges.

Agents continue to try to get
him to confess to the heist,

but he remains silent.

- [John] With Gotti's death in
2002,

the only one directly
involved in the heist

who goes to jail for
it is Louis Werner.

Everyone else either walks

or takes the secret
to their graves.

- [Laurence] For
nearly four decades

after the Lufthansa heist,

the investigation remains cold.

Neither the mastermind nor
the 5 million in stolen cash

has ever been found.

- In 2014, authorities
make their first arrest

in the Lufthansa case
in over 35 years.

They arrest 80-year-old
Vincent Asaro,

who's a made man and member
of the Bonanno family.

Authorities say that Asaro
has been pretty entrenched

in the Bonanno family
syndicate for decades.

- The FBI has suspected
for many years

that Asaro might have some
connection to the case,

but they never had any hard
evidence to implicate him.

However, in this new
investigation and trial,

the FBI thinks it's found enough

to connect a third mob
family to the heist.

- [Claire] In 1978, at the time
of the Lufthansa heist,

the Bonanno crime family
is essentially the smallest

of the five families
in New York.

And this small size allows
them to really partner up

with the other four families

to pull off heists
in other crimes.

Even though it's been decades
since the Lufthansa heist,

authorities still
want to figure out

where that $5 million went,

and they're convinced
that Vini Asaro

and the Bonanno crime family

might have the missing
information they need

to track down this money.

- [Laurence] The key witness
at the trial is Asaro's cousin,

a longtime Bonanno associate
turned FBI informant.

- [Kavitha] At Asaro's trial,

it becomes known that his cousin

had secretly recorded
conversations between them

between 2010 and 2013

and one of these recordings,

Asaro allegedly confesses
to the Lufthansa heist.

The cousin gets
Asaro to reminisce

about that night
in December, 1978

when he showed up
with burlap sacks

filled with cash and gold coins

and crates filled with
watches and jewels.

- [Claire] Asaro's cousin
essentially gets Vinni Asaro

to admit to the whole events

of the evening of
the Lufthansa heist,

including how Asaro
talked his cousin

into being the person
who would hide the money.

According to this
taped confession,

a week later, someone shows
up at his cousin's door,

rings the doorbell,
and takes all the loot.

- [Laurence] When
Asaro takes the stand

and is forced to listen
to the secret recordings,

he dismisses them with
a wave of his hand.

- [John] Asaro takes the stand
and is completely defiant.

He accuses his cousin
of simply being a rat

who will say anything

in order to have his
own crimes pardoned.

Asaro admits under
cross-examination

that he knew about the heist,

but it was carried out

by people he knew who hung out
with him at Robert's Lounge.

Asaro says, I was
never really involved.

- [Lis] Another witness
corroborates the cousin

by saying that he saw Asaro
with an at attache case

full of money and jewels,

and he saw Asaro giving
that attache case

to a Bonanno leader
sort of as a tribute.

So, of course, he would've
known about Lufthansa heist.

- [Kavitha] Asaro claims that he
was offered hush money

from Jimmy the Gent

to keep quiet about the heist,

but that he never received it

and he didn't go
after that money

because he says he knew better

than to approach a man
as violent as Jimmy.

But another informant
counters that claim.

He says Asaro was
suddenly able to pay off

all of his gambling
debts in just one day,

and then he proceeded to place
even more bets thereafter.

- [Lis] By the 1990s, Asaro had
really lost everything.

He was a gambler,
he was into drugs.

He used to be a captain
of the Bonanno family

and they demoted him.

He really was kind of nothing.

He was living out in a
small house in Queens,

until 2014 when he was charged

with being involved
in the heist.

- [Claire] Asaro is quite a
character during his trial.

He is very insistent

that he needs to have
a clear sight line

to all of his accusers,

and he essentially goes out
of his way to threaten them.

He even mouths obscenities
while he's on the stand.

- [John] Asaro's defense team

plays along with these
belittling tactics

by portraying his cousin

as just a desperate guy

who is out to have his
own crimes forgiven

by making up stories about
a member of the family.

- [Laurence] The
strategy seems to work.

On November 12th, 2015,

after just two days
of deliberation,

the jury announces its verdict.

Not guilty on all charges.

- [Kavitha] Prosecutors are
just speechless.

They've been working
on this case for years

and they had a dozen
witnesses testifying

that they thought
that this would stick.

Jurors don't offer any
explanation for their verdict.

But many do feel that
the prosecutor's reliance

on turned informants
and witnesses

who were trying to expunge their
own records was unreliable.

- [Laurence] It's
yet another setback

for the decades old
criminal investigation

and most likely, the
government's last chance

to try someone for
the Lufthansa heist.

- [John] Asaro walks free.

He claps for the jurors,
he hugs his lawyers.

He thanks the judge,

and then he goes to
get into his car,

and as he does so,
he says to his lawyer

a very mafia sounding quip,

"Don't let them see
the body in the trunk."

- [Kavitha] Unfortunately,
Asaro's full involvement

in the Lufthansa heist and the
whereabouts of the $5 million

might never be fully known.

He dies in 2023 in his
modest house in Queens,

just a few miles from JFK.

- To this day, the only person

actually convicted in
the Lufthansa heist

is low-level airline
worker, Louis Werner.

Jimmy Burke, the
Lucchese, Gambino

and Bonanno Family godfathers

and other major players,

all escaped charges related
to the Lufthansa heist.

And with all of them now dead,

the secret of what happened
to the missing millions

may be gone forever,

making it one of
the most elusive

and bloody open cases
in American history.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching
"History's Greatest Mysteries."