5. A 1978 Airport Heist at JFK Airport Was the Largest Robbery of Cash on US Soil
Sometimes real life is as strange as a movie. JFK Airport was the site of the largest robbery of cash on American soil: the Lufthansa heist, featured in Martin Scorcese’s Goodfellas. In December 1978, thieves from the Lucchese crime family snuck into cargo building 261 at 3 a.m. Just over an hour later, they got away with $5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewelry, a combined $21 million in today’s money.
After the heist, organizer Jimmy “The Gent” Burke ordered the murder of many of the participants in order to keep them quiet. He was later convicted of one of those murders and sentenced to life in prison. See more of NYC’s most notorious crime scenes.