Truth about the goodfellas heist

Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco starred in the 1990 film Goodfellas

DRIPPING with diamond watches, bejewelled pinkie rings and Italian suits, Robert De Niro and Ray Liotta made the gangster life look dangerously attractive in the Oscar-winning classic Goodfellas.

 

The real-life mobsters who stole almost $6million (£4million) and jewels from a Lufthansa airlines vault in New York's Kennedy airport - and inspired the film - should have been set for a life of luxury.

Instead, one of the most daring and lucrative heists of the century left a trail of bodies in its wake as conspirators were killed to stop them informing, cheated out of their share or squandered their fortunes on gambling, drugs, drink and women.



A police officer guards a stolen van which was used to loot £4million at New York's JFK airport

That's the revelation in a new book and court papers from the forthcoming trial of an alleged godfather - the first to be charged. "All the accomplices saw nothing but riches in their futures," says former FBI agent Steve Carbone.

"They all looked back and rued their involvement in this caper, losing their lives as a result of it."

Mobster Henry Hill, played by Liotta in Goodfellas, brought the plan for the 1978 robbery to his boss Jimmy "The Gent" Burke.

Before his death in 2012 he wrote The Lufthansa Heist, a tell-all revealing the gang's secrets, to be published in Britain next month.

They all looked back and rued their involvement in this caper

Steve Carbone, former FBI agent

 

Burke and Hill were too clever to carry out the heist themselves. Instead they sent a motley crew of henchmen: Robert "Frenchy" McMahon, corpulent Louis "Roast Beef" Cafora, Angelo Sepe, Tommy de Simone, Paulo Licastri, Joe Manri and Burke's son Frank.

Hill's co-author Daniel Simone says: "Their collective intelligence equated to a flickering lightbulb. One was dyslexic, another could hardly read or write and three were actually illiterate."

Lufthansa's barely protected airport vault seemed to be an easy target. It routinely stored millions of dollars from international banks.

A shipping clerk alerted Hill to an incoming delivery of millions in unmarked dollars and jewels and supplied the gang with blueprints and alarm protocols allowing them to make a clean getaway.

"The shipping clerk was the only one ever convicted in the theft but he couldn't identify the rest of the gang. They had been careful to hide their identities," says Simone.

The gang went in brandishing guns and pistol-whipping guards before making off. The robbery took 45 minutes but within two years most of them would be dead.

 

The gang's problems began only minutes after the heist, when getaway driver Parnell Edwards, played by Samuel L Jackson in Goodfellas, decided to visit his girlfriend before scrapping the truck.

LOST for 48 hours in a drug stupor, police found his truck crammed with clues. Mobster Tommy de Simone, played by Joe Pesci, put five bullets from his revolver in the back of Edwards' head.

De Simone himself was killed on the day he was expecting to become a full Mafia "made man" as investigators closed in on him. The trigger man was none other than future boss of the Gambino family John Gotti.

De Simone's mistress threatened to go to the FBI. The top half of her body washed up later on a New Jersey beach. The bottom half was never found.

When police began suspecting burly Cafora, he and his wife ended up crushed inside a car at a scrapyard. Gunmen Manri and McMahon were both shot in their car when investigators got close.

Marty Krugman, a petty crook and wig shop owner who introduced the Lufthansa shipping clerk to Hill, was also killed.

"Marty was demanding his $500,000 share and it was cheaper for Burke to whack him," says Simone.

The Goodfellas film is about informant Henry Hill

Burke confessed to Hill: "I want to clean up everything because I don't wanna have to deal with any of this b******* for the next 10 years."

But recently a skeleton came back to haunt him: the body of a suspected informant allegedly murdered with a dog chain by Burke and former Bonanno crime family head Vincent Asaro.

FBI agents found the corpse last year when they dug up the basement of Burke's home. Almost four decades after the Lufthansa theft Asaro, now 80, is the first to face jail for the crime.

With four alleged accomplices, he goes on trial in October for the heist and charges including murder, robbery, extortion and arson dating from 1968 to 2013.

"We never got our right money," Asaro raged in a secret police recording. "Jimmy [Burke] kept everything."

What little loot they did receive they blew on lavish cars, minks for their mistresses and of course gambling.

Former Bonanno crime family head Dominick Cicale claims that Mafia boss Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano, currently serving life for murder, blew at least $2million, allegedly paid in "tribute", at casinos and on bizarre plans to make the animated movie Ferretina: a love story between two ferrets. Sadly, it was never filmed.

Burke made his own bad investment, lending $325,000 to Richard Eaton for a drugs deal, which Eaton blew on gambling and women. Burke ordered a hit on Eaton and his body turned up two years later with a rope around its neck.

 

The Lufthansa heist was like a curse haunting its protagonists. Burke's son Frank was later killed in a drug deal. Sepe was murdered after robbing a Mafia drugs traf-ficker.

Hill, who was paid only $50,000 for his role in the heist, survived by running a cocaine and heroin ring but became hooked on his own supply. He was arrested on drugs charges just as Burke ordered his assassination.

Facing up to 30 years' imprisonment or murder by his own gang, Hill agreed to enter the witness protection programme in exchange for testifying against the mob. Yet Hill couldn't go straight. "Henry was an incorrigible criminal," says Simone. "Even in the witness protection programme he was arrested for extortion, drugs conspiracy and drunk-driving.

"The Feds finally told him: 'You're on your own,' but there was nobody to kill him. By then all the gang were either dead or behind bars."

Burke died of cancer while serving life for murder. Hill's life was spared but he never felt safe.

"There's no peace," he said. "On any one day you never know if one of your own is gonna whack you."

His final years were sad and drugaddled. "Gone were the fancy automobiles and gone were the wads of hundred dollar bills," he wrote. "The $10,000 shopping sprees, the vacations in the tropics and the Las Vegas gambling binges were fast-fading memories. Losing it all hadn't been easy but losing the good life outweighed getting a temple full of lead."

To order The Lufthansa Heist by Henry Hill and Daniel Simone (published September 30 by Lyons Press, £17.95), please call the Express Bookshop on 01872 562310. Alternatively please send a cheque or postal order to: Lufthansa Offer, PO Box 200, Falmouth, Cornwall TR11 4WJ or visit expressbookshop.co.uk