Just before 7.30 p.m. on January 17, 1950, a green Ford truck raced through the streets of Boston

toward the neighborhood of Roxbury.

Sitting in the bed of the truck were five robbers, and they were part of the crew who had just pulled off one of the cleanest, quickest, and most successful heists in American history.

At the feet of the robbers sat a collection of canvas bags. In the bags was roughly $1.3 million in cash and another

$1.5 million in checks and other valuables. The cash alone would be the equivalent of $17 million

today. It had been stolen from the vault at the Boston headquarters of Brink's security company,

and the job had been years in the making. Anthony Pino, one of Boston's best casemen and thieves, had been

working toward the job since 1944. He built a crew of trusted men, and for several years,

they had robbed Brinks armored trucks and Brinks customers for hundreds of thousands

of dollars. But by 1948, the crew had become wary of the heat they were generating. Pino

pitched them one last major score, the vault at the Brinks headquarters building on Prince

Street in Boston's North End. For over a year, Pino and his crew planned the heist down to the smallest detail.

On January 17th, they committed the largest robbery in American history up to that time.

When the Ford pickup truck arrived at the safe house in Roxbury, Pino and his crew initiated

the next phase of the operation. After unloading the canvas bags full of loot, Joe Banfield,

the getaway driver, drove away to get rid of the pickup truck and the guns that were used during the robbery.

Anthony Pino and another thief quickly left the safe house in order to be get rid of the pickup truck and the guns that were used during the robbery.

Anthony Pino and another thief quickly left the safe house in order to begin establishing alibis.

Meanwhile, several of the men stayed behind and began counting the spoils of the heist.

They separated the cash into two piles. One pile was for used bills that had already been in circulation. The other pile was for fresh money, money that had been recently printed by the government

and wrapped in Federal Reserve Bands. The thieves knew that they'd have to wait until the

heat died down before they could spend the Federal Reserve money.

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