The robbery was orchestrated by Allen Pace III, of Compton, with childhood friends Erik Damon Boyd, of Buena Park; Eugene Lamar Hill Jr., of Bellflower; Freddie Lynn McCrary Jr., of Arleta; Terry Wayne Brown Sr., of Los Angeles; and Thomas Lee Johnson, of Las Vegas, Nevada.
He recruited five of his childhood friends, providing them with detailed floor plans and camera locations, ski masks, pistols, a shotgun, and radio headsets.
On the night of Friday, September 12, 1997, the group of six assembled at a house party – to establish an alibi – before leaving, where Pace used his keys to gain admittance to the facility.
Rushing the two vault guards, the robbers managed to subdue all employees with duct tape before they could signal any alarms and did not fire a shot.
They enlisted the help of David Matsumoto, a Los Angeles immigration attorney, paying him and his office manager Joaquin Bin $1 million each for their assistance.
Matsumoto structured the transactions via buying property and cars, investing in companies, and writing checks and W-2 tax forms for the robbers to give the impression they were earning wages.
Allen Pace, initially claiming innocence, was arrested and sentenced to 24 years in prison on April 23, 2001, and was incarcerated at a Federal Correctional Institution in Safford until his release on October 1, 2020.