Today is Sunday, January 17, 2021.

On this day in 1950, a group of 11 men stole more than $2.7 million from an armored car depot

belonging to the Brinks Company.

It was the largest heist in U.S. history at that time.

Welcome to Today in True Crime, a Spotify original from Parkast.

Today we're exploring the Great Brinks robbery. It was a heist so thoroughly planned out that the whole endeavor, start to finish, was planned over the duration of three years.

To learn about its almost perfect execution, let's begin by going back to North End, Boston, Massachusetts on January 17, 1950, just before

7.30 p.m.

At the Brinks Warehouse, five employees were counting and storing away money. Brinks

trucks had picked all the cash up from customers in Boston that day and brought it back

to this warehouse for sorting. It was a job these workers did every evening, without fanfare

or issue, but this night was different.

As the employees counted the money, the group of burglars used copied keys to simultaneously

enter the warehouse from multiple locked doors. They spoke very little to each other, and

their features were obscured behind rubber,

Halloween-type masks and chauffeur's caps.

They surrounded the employees and aimed guns at them, then told them to lie on the floor.

The robbers tied the workers' arms behind their backs and covered their mouths in tape. It all happened within minutes.

Moments later, they were stacking the money in bags. It seemed like the heist was perfect.

Then suddenly, a buzzer rang out. The thieves stopped what they were doing and rushed to one of the employees.

The burglars removed the tape from his mouth and asked what that noise was.

He said that the person ringing the buzzer was a garage attendant trying to get inside.

...