The Lufthansa heist was a robbery at New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport on December 11, 1978. An estimated $5.875 million (equivalent to $ million in ) 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. Jimmy Burke, a Lucchese crime family associate, 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 of those involved in the months following the robbery to avoid being implicated in the heist. The only person convicted in the robbery was Louis Werner, an airport worker who helped plan the heist. The money and jewelry have never been recovered. The heist's magnitude made it one of the longest-investigated crimes in the United States; the latest arrest associated with the robbery was made in 2014, which resulted in acquittal. Planning The heist was allegedly planned by Jimmy Burke, an associate of the Lucchese crime family, and carried out by several associates. The plot began when bookmaker Martin Krugman told Henry Hill (an associate of Burke's) that Lufthansa flew in currency to its cargo terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport. The information had originally come from Louis Werner, a worker at the airport who owed Krugman $20,000 for gambling debts (), and from his co-worker Peter Gruenwald. Werner and Gruenwald had previously been successful in stealing $22,000 in foreign currency () from their employer Lufthansa in 1976. Burke decided on Tommy DeSimone, Angelo Sepe, Louis Cafora, Joe Manri, Paolo LiCastri, and Robert McMahon as the robbers. Burke's son Frank would drive one of the back up vehicles and Parnell "Stacks" Edwards' job was to dispose of the van afterwards. Depending on his role in the robbery, each participant was to receive $10,000 to $50,000. However, those amounts were based on the estimated haul, which was only $2 million compared to the actual take of $5.875 million. Werner was to receive a flat 10% of the take. Heist At around 3 a.m. on Monday, December 11, 1978, the six men in a black Ford Econoline van pulled up to the Lufthansa cargo building 261. The padlock on the gate was cut with a pair of bolt cutters. Some of the crew climbed up the stairs of