By Kyle Scholes

On the night of January 17, 1950 a bank named Brink’s was robbed of over 3 million dollars in checks, money orders, cash, and other securities by 8 men wearing navy coats, shoes designed to make no footstep and, masks from a fictional superhero Mr. Marvel. 5 employees who had been bound and, forced to the ground at gunpoint had witnessed only a small part of the crime. When the robbers made away with the money the bound men struggled to free themselves. Once free they reported the crime to the police. The police arrived at the Brink’s bank. But, because money orders that were stolen had belonged to The Federal Reserve bank, as well as the Veterans Administration Office the case was quickly taken over by the FBI.

With little but rope, tape, and four serial numbers belonging to revolvers, which also had been stolen the FBI set their focus on street gangs. All over the country gang-members were being hunted down and interrogated. But, even still this was not enough so, FBI agents offered any person in America who could successfully help locate the bank robbers $100,000 in cash.

Frequent tips were made yet this was still not enough. With nearly all hope lost, and time passing by agents stumbled upon truck pieces, which had been cut up, and smashed. Although they gained no evidence from this truck it caused them to set their focus on two men: Pino, and Mc Ginnis, as well as conduct searches throughout Stougnton and Boston.     Neither of these two men had the nerve to pull off such a dangerous task like this one though. Which led FBI agents to follow this road further. They found that Pino worked with a man named O’ Keefe before the burglary. Neither, Pino or O’ Keefe had a convincing alibi as to where they were the night of the robbery. Now with the FBI’s focus on Pino, and O’ Keefe, and a search of the Stougnton Boston area for further information, FBI agents received a tip that stolen money from the Brink’s Bank was in an O’Keefe relative’s house. They got a search warrant and entered the home to find the money. The FBI could not identify the money as having come from Brink’s robbery.

Having searched the O’ Keefe’s relatives house they also searched his families house. O’ Keefe must have realized how close the FBI agents were getting to linking him to the Brink case because he and Guscoria, his friend who was also a bank robber made a trip out of Stoughnton most likely to drop off the FBI’s radar.

For whatever reason O’ Keefe and Guscoria were arrested in Towanda, Pennsylvania. O’ Keefe remained in jail for 4 years. During his stay rumors were circulating around with names of the other Brink’s gang members (who remained unknown to the FBI), trying to help O’ Keefe get out of jail. But, as O’ Keefe stayed in jail hatred for the other Brink’s members rose. With the other gang members seemingly having a time of their life and ignoring O’ Keefe’s demands for his share of the money he grew ever more angry. Until he couldn’t take it anymore and confessed to the FBI giving the names of the other gang members: Baker, Costa, Geagan, Maffie, Mcginnis, Pino, Faherty, Richardson and confessing himself, O’ Keffe.

If he had not said anything every other member would likely have gotten away with the bank robbery and with 100’s of thousands of dollars in their pockets. But in the end, the FBI’s more than 6year intensive investigation of the Brink’s Bank robbery helped crack this case. The criminals were finally caught and a court date was set. The record of the state trial was more than 5,300pages, which is greater than that of the first 5 Harry Potter books. The court decided on life sentences for Baker, Costa, Geagan, Maffie, Mcginnis, Pino, Faherty, Richardson and O’ Keefe even though no one was killed or injured.

Skipping forward to the present. One million dollars of Brink’s Bank money is still out there somewhere. Where could it be? Who will find it?