THE LUFTHANSA HEIST

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 $24.4 million in 2022) 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 he 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.