The plot began when bookmaker Martin Krugman told Burke's associate, Henry Hill, that the German airline Lufthansa flew in currency to its cargo terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
The information had originally come from Louis Werner, an airport worker who owed Krugman $20,000 for gambling debts (equivalent to $101,000 in 2023), and from his co-worker Peter Gruenwald.
[5] Burke selected Tommy DeSimone, Angelo Sepe, Louis Cafora, Joe Manri, Paolo LiCastri and Robert McMahon to carry out the robbery.
[5] At around 3:00 a.m. on Monday, December 11, 1978, a black Ford Econoline van carrying the six members of the robbery crew pulled up to Building 261, Lufthansa's cargo terminal at Kennedy Airport.
After cutting the padlock at the gate with a pair of bolt cutters, some of the crew climbed up the stairs of the east tower and entered wearing ski masks and gloves.
[5] Outside the terminal, Whalen noticed two unmasked men sitting in a black van parked at the loading ramp as he drove past.
[6][7] Meanwhile, inside the warehouse, employee Rolf Rebmann heard a noise by the loading ramp and went to investigate; he was captured and brought with Whalen to the lunchroom to join the others.
[5] The robbers drove to meet Burke at an auto repair shop in Canarsie, Brooklyn, where the boxes of money were removed from the van and placed in the trunks of two automobiles.
[5] Edwards was instructed to drive the van to New Jersey, where it (along with any potential evidence inside) was to be destroyed in a junk yard belonging to John Gotti.
Instead, he parked the black Ford van in front of a fire hydrant at his girlfriend's apartment, where police discovered it two days after the heist.
FBI agents set up heavy surveillance, following the crew in helicopters and bugging their vehicles, the phones at Robert's Lounge, and even the payphones nearest to the bar.
I want to see... look where the money's at... dig a hole in the cellar [inaudible] rear lawn..." However, this was not enough to definitively connect the crew to the heist, and no search warrants were issued.
[5] Vincent Asaro, a capo in the Bonanno crime family, was arrested on January 23, 2014, in conjunction with an indictment charging him with involvement in the Lufthansa heist; his cousin, Gaspare Valenti, testified against him.
He became convinced that his former associates planned to have him killed: Vario, for dealing drugs; and Burke, to prevent Hill from implicating him in the Lufthansa heist.