7 American Heists That Made Thieves a Fortune

Big-money heists often unravel. Even carefully planned jobs can leave behind evidence, and many of the thieves involved in the cases below were eventually identified, arrested, or convicted. A few, however, remain unsolved decades later.

The cases on this list range from a mob-connected airport robbery dramatized in Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas" to a museum theft that remains unsolved. Some crews relied on inside information and meticulous planning; others were undone by small mistakes after the money was gone. In every case, the haul ran into the millions.

In the early hours of March 18, 1990, two men dressed as police officers rang the bell at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and said they were responding to a disturbance. A guard let them inside. The men then overpowered the two security guards and restrained them in the basement, leaving the thieves free to move through the galleries.

The thieves spent 81 minutes inside before leaving with 13 works of art, including two Rembrandt paintings and five works by Degas. The FBI values the stolen art at more than $500 million.

The museum began displaying the empty frames in 1994 as a reminder of what was lost. More than 36 years after the theft, none of the 13 works has been recovered, and the case remains unsolved. The museum continues to offer a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the safe return of the stolen art.

Allen Pace had insider knowledge. As a regional safety inspector for Dunbar Armored, he knew the facility, its security cameras, and its routines. He recruited five childhood friends and helped plan the robbery for a Friday night, when the vault held a large amount of cash. In about 30 minutes, the crew loaded $18.9 million into a rented U-Haul truck.

The execution was close to perfect, but investigators recovered a broken taillight at the scene and eventually traced it to a truck rented by Eugene Lamar Hill, one of the robbers. After his arrest, Hill pleaded guilty and implicated his accomplices. All six robbers were convicted, but most of the $18.9 million was never recovered.

An organized-crime crew robbed Lufthansa's cargo terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport on December 11, 1978, taking more than $5 million in cash and approximately $1 million in jewelry. It was one of the largest cash heists in U.S. history at the time.

The plot grew from inside information provided by Lufthansa employee Louis Werner, who had gambling debts. James Burke, an associate of the Lucchese crime family, helped organize the robbery. During the heist, armed members of the crew overpowered employees at the cargo terminal, removed the cash and jewelry, and escaped.

Werner was convicted for his role, but most of the people involved were never convicted for the Lufthansa robbery itself. Several people connected to the heist were later killed, and most of the stolen cash and jewelry was never recovered. The Lufthansa heist became a major plot point in Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas," which was adapted from Nicholas Pileggi's book "Wiseguy."

In March 1972, a crew that included Ohio safecracker Amil Dinsio targeted the United California Bank in Laguna Niguel. Later accounts tied the job to a rumor that money connected to President Richard Nixon was hidden there, but federal court records do not establish that story. Over a weekend, the burglars blasted a hole through the roof, disabled the bank's alarm system, forced open more than 500 safe-deposit boxes, and stole cash, gold coins, and other valuables. Federal appellate records put the documented loss at more than $2 million.

Investigators later recovered some of the stolen property and burglary tools at Amil Dinsio's Ohio residence. Dinsio and several co-conspirators were convicted in federal court. The burglary later became the basis for the 2019 movie "Finding Steve McQueen."

David Ghantt was a vault supervisor at Loomis Fargo's Charlotte facility. On the night of October 4, 1997, he loaded $17,044,200 in cash into a company van and drove it to a warehouse where several accomplices were waiting. Surveillance video recorded him moving the money out of the vault.

Ghantt fled to Mexico with less than $30,000, while other members of the group stayed in North Carolina and moved or spent large amounts of the stolen cash. Mexican authorities arrested Ghantt in March 1998 and turned him over to U.S. authorities. He later pleaded guilty, and numerous accomplices and money launderers were also convicted. The case inspired the 2016 comedy "Masterminds."

On September 12, 1983, Wells Fargo guard Victor Manuel Gerena allegedly took two security employees hostage at the company's West Hartford facility, restrained them, and stole approximately $7 million. Federal prosecutors later said the robbery was intended to fund Los Macheteros, a clandestine organization that seeks Puerto Rican independence, and that conspirators transported stolen currency to Mexico.

The FBI investigation led to the arrests of more than a dozen suspected conspirators in 1985 and 1986, and federal prosecutors ultimately charged 19 defendants in the case. Gerena was added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list on May 14, 1984. He remains at large, but the FBI removed him from the Ten Most Wanted list on December 15, 2016.

Over Easter weekend in 2024, burglars breached a money-storage facility in Sylmar that media reports identified as a GardaWorld location. LAPD received a call for service at a business on the street at about 4:30 a.m. on Sunday, March 31. Police later said as much as $30 million was missing. The burglars breached the building and the safe, and the operators did not discover the theft until they opened the vault on Monday, April 1. The FBI and LAPD did not publicly confirm the exact amount stolen or identify the company when they announced their joint investigation.

The FBI and LAPD opened a joint investigation to identify the person or group responsible. As of August 2026, no arrests or charges have been publicly announced. Authorities have released few details about the investigation, and claims that the burglars had inside help remain unconfirmed. 

If the reported $30 million figure is accurate, the burglary would exceed the $18.9 million stolen in the 1997 Dunbar Armored robbery and rank among the largest cash thefts in U.S. history.