The Great Brinks Robbery was the biggest armed robbery in U.S. history at the time. Thieves vanished after stealing $2.7 million, leaving few clues. It was almost the perfect crime. Almost.
A detective examines the Brinks vault after the theft. Photo courtesy Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.
It happened in 1950 at the Brinks Armored Car depot in Boston's North End. The gang of 11 that stole the money after two years of meticulous planning almost got away with it. They failed because they fell out over the division of the spoils. All had been arrested five days before the statute of limitations ended.
The idea for the heist came from Joseph ‘Big Joe' McGinniss, but the mastermind was career criminal Anthony ‘Fats' Pino. McGinness and Pino recruited a gang to watch the depot for 18 months to figure out when it held the most money. They stole plans for the depot's alarm system, and returned them undetected. They also removed the cylinders from locks, one by one, and had a locksmith duplicate the keys. Planning for the Brinks robbery took two years and included six failed attempts.
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