Goodfellas Never Showed the Heist That Made Henry Hill

In Martin Scorsese’s Good Fellows, the Air France robbery takes about 30 seconds. A cargo worker hands Ray Leota as Henry Hill a key. Hill walks into a room at Kennedy Airport with an empty suitcase, fills it with cash, and walks out. It looks easy.

It looks like the kind of score any connected kid could pull off with the right inside man. Scorsese needed it that way. The Air France job was a stepping stone, a warm-up act before the Luftansa heist that drives the rest of the film. But the real Air France robbery was not a 30-second scene.

It took months, and nobody handed Henry Hill anything. The real score involved burglarizing a security guard’s apartment, hiring a hooker who Hill said looked like Natalie Wood, a detail from Hill’s account in Nicholas Pelgi’s Wise Guy, the book that became good fellas, seducing the guard at a motel steam room, sprinting an 18key ring to a locksmith who was about to close for the night, and duplicating 15 keys in 30 minutes because the locksmith did not have blanks for the other three. One of those 15 copies happened to fit. They stole $420,000 in seven canvas bags with red seals carried out in a suitcase so heavy Hill could barely walk.

No gun, no alarm, no shots fired. And good fellas showed you none of it. The Air France score did not happen in a vacuum. Kennedy Airport in the 1960s was a 5,000 acre facility with more than 50,000 employees and billions of dollars in cargo moving through it every year.

The Lucas Crime family treated it like a personal department store. The crew had people everywhere. Cargo handlers, freight dispatchers, security guards, maintenance workers, even the waitresses in the terminal restaurants. If a valuable shipment landed at Kennedy, someone in the Varo crew knew about it within hours.

Hijacking trucks was a daily operation. Jimmy Burke alone was knocking over hundreds of loads a year. Furs, diamonds, negotiable securities, electronics. The airlines were happy to underestimate their losses and collect the insurance rather than spend money on better security.

The union made sure nobody got fired for cooperating with the thieves. And the cops who were supposed to patrol the cargo area were already on the payroll. Henry Hill had been working the airport since he was a teenager. He knew the back roads, the loading docks, the shift schedules.

By 1967, he was 23 years old, selling untacked cigarettes out of the trunk of his car at Kennedy. One of his regular stops was the Air France cargo dock, where a night shift foreman named Robert McMahon bought cartons from Hill every week. McMahon’s nickname was Frenchie. He had been with Air France so long, he knew every shipment that came through. every security rotation, every gap in the system.

Frenchie had already proven himself. He had once tipped Hill and Jimmy Burke off to a small box of silk dresses worth $18,000 at the garment center. But what Frenchie told Hill that January was worth a lot more than silk. Air France was the carrier for American currency that had been exchanged by tourists and military personnel in Southeast Asia.

The airline shipped the cash back to the United States in large white canvas bags with red seals, each one holding $60,000. Three or four bags at a time, sometimes more. The bags arrived on overseas flights and sat in a vault at the cargo terminal until armored trucks from Wells Fargo picked them up the next business day. Frenchie McMahon told Hill the money was there for the taking.

Hill’s first instinct was a stickup. He brought Jimmy Burke, Tommy Desimone, and Raymond Montamuro to the cargo terminal to case the place. They got as far as the loading platform before Hill realized it would not work. There were 25, maybe 30 people moving through the house.

Too many bodies to control, too many variables. Hill called it off, but the canvas bags were right there, stacked against a wall near a strong room that was still under construction. Hill had seen the red seals. He could not stop thinking about them.

The problem was the strong room. Air France was building a new vault with cement block walls to replace an old wire cage. Two keys existed. One belonged to the day supervisor who Hill could not reach.

The other belonged to a private security guard who wore the key on a ring clipped bow to his belt. The guard was the kind of man who took his job seriously. He loved being a cop. He never handed the key to anyone, not even Frenchie.

If Frenchie needed to store something in the room, the guard would open the door himself, wait, and lock it again. Hill needed a copy of that key, and the guard never let it leave his body. In Good Fellas, this entire scheme does not exist. The movie shows a cooperative a guard a simple handoff, a keychanging hands without any complications.

Scorsesei needed it that way because the Air France robbery was just a beat in a larger story. Like his later films, Casino and The Irishman, Scorsesei compresses complex criminal operations into cinematic moments, but the real heist had a setup so elaborate it could fill its own film. This is this is where the plan begins. Uh the guard was about 40 years old.

He was thin. He wore glasses. He lived alone in a furnished room on Rockaway Boulevard across the street from a White Castle hamburger joint. Hill and Montamuro waited until his day off, then broke in.

They went through every drawer, every shelf, every closet. The key was not there. The guard carried it on his person 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, even when he was not working. But Hill noticed something about the apartment.

It was a sad little place. The furniture was rented. The only personal items were stacks of detective magazines and a much larger stack of magazines featuring women. The guard was alone and he was lonely.

Hill drove back to Frenchie and told him what he had found. Maybe they could get to the guard through a girl. Jimmy Burke had a simpler idea. Kidnap the guard, take the key.

But Hill knew what that meant. Burke would not let the guard live afterward because a living guard could identify them. A murdered security guard at Kennedy Airport would bring the FBI and the Port Authority police down on every crew working the cargo terminals. It would burn the whole operation, not just Air France.

Hill told Burke to wait. He had a better plan. Frenchie started taking the guard out for drinks at the Jade East Motel just across the parkway from the Air France cargo area. Over drinks, Frenchie talked about women and about a girlfriend he had.

The guard listened to every word. The next step was a hooker from the Bronx. Hill said she cost $150 a night, steep for 1967. She had black hair, a great figure, and big eyes.

She did not look like a hooker. Hill said she looked like Natalie Wood. Frenchie brought the guard to the Jade East to meet his girl. She made a play for the guard immediately.

Frenchie made an excuse to leave and the girl took the guard upstairs. That first night, Hill did not touch the key. He just wanted to know if the scheme could work. It could.

The following weekend, they ran a dry run. The plan was precise. get the guard out of his clothes and into the motel basement steam room and whirlpool. While the guard was downstairs with the girl, Frenchie would leave his room key under a hallway ashtray. He would signal Hill by parting the blinds in the window when they were heading down.

Hill and Tommy Dimone waited in the parking lot, watching the window. When the blinds moved, Hill went up. He reached under the ashtray, found the key, and opened the door. The guard key ring sat on the nightstand right next to his folded pants.

Hill did not take it. Not yet. This was just the test. He needed to know the guard would separate himself from his keys long enough for the real thing.

He closed the door, put the room key back under the ashtray, and went downstairs to wait. They were in the steam room for an hour and a half. Plenty of time. The system worked.

Hill spent the next week calculating the timing. The locksmith on Rockaway Boulevard near Jamaica Avenue could duplicate keys, but he closed at 7:00 in the evening. If the guard got to the Jade East by 5:30 and headed to the steam room by 6:00, Hill would have roughly an hour to grab the keys, drive to the locksmith, get them copied, drive back, and replace them. It was tight, but doable.

The question was whether the guard would cooperate with the schedule. He was a slow, stubborn man. Every time Frenchie tried to rush him, the guard just moved slower. Then Frenchie called with the real number.

Between $400,000 and $700,000 was arriving the following Friday. No more dry runs. Hill bought Terry cloth robes for the girl to give Frenchie and the guard as presents. Something to wear to the steam room.

On Friday evening, the guard and Frenchie arrived at the Jade East around 6:00. Hill was already nervous. The locksmith closed at 7:00. The guard was slow and took his time with everything.

The girl kept pushing him along, but Hill was watching the clock. It was not until 6:30 that the guard and Frenchie went to their room. The minute they were gone, Hill went upstairs, reached under the ashtray for the room key, and opened the door. The key ring sat right next to the guard pants. 18 keys.

Hill grabbed the grabbed the ring and ran downstairs. Jimmy Burke had a car waiting. They raced to the locksmith on Rockaway Boulevard. The man was getting ready to close.

Hill and Burke had to bang on his door and beg. Then they realized they did not know which of the 18 keys was the one they needed. They ordered duplicates of all 18. The locksmith worked as fast as he could.

When he finished, he handed Hill 15 duplicate keys. He did not have the right blanks for the other three. 15 out of 18. Hill took them, drove back to the Jade East, ran upstairs, and placed the key ring exactly where he had found it. Tommy Desimone, half undressed, wandered into the steam room area to signal Frenchie that the keys were back.

The guard never knew they had been gone. The next morning, Saturday, Frenchie tested the 15 keys at the strong room door. One of them worked. Now comes the night of the score.

The robbery was set for that night. Frenchie had confirmed that seven canvas bags were sitting in the vault. A Jewish holiday meant there would not be a bank pickup until Tuesday, which gave them the whole weekend before anyone discovered the money was gone. Henry Hill bought the biggest suitcase he could find.

At 11:40 on the night of Saturday, April 7th, 1967, Hill and Tommy Desimone drove into the cargo parking area at Kennedy Airport with a rented car and stolen plates. They waited for the shift change when workers would be coming and going. Frenchie was stationed near the loading platform. He had told Hill to walk in like he was picking up a lost suitcase.

Nobody would question it. People wandered in all the time. Hill climbed the platform ramp and walked into the cargo office area. He could see Frenchie nearby pretending not to know him.

Hill walked straight to the strong room door. He had been holding the key in his hand since he left the car. He slipped it in, turned it once, and the door opened. The room was dark, like a big closet.

Hill used a pen-iz flashlight. Seven white canvas bags sat on the floor, red seals visible in the narrow beam. He opened the suitcase, loaded all seven bags inside, and walked out. The suitcase was so heavy Hill could barely lift it.

Frenchie later told him he thought Hill was leaving empty-handed because he practically floated out the door. No alarm, no shots, no confrontation. Nobody was ever prosecuted for the theft. The New York Times reported the story on April 12th, 1967.

The headline read that $420,000 was missing from a locked room at Kennedy Airport. The Daily News said the money had vanished into thin air. The FBI swarmed the Air France cargo building number 86, questioned every employee, and searched manifests and bills of lighting. They found nothing.

Now, where the money went. By the time anyone realized the money was gone, Henry Hill and his crew had already given away $120,000. That’s how the system worked. You did not just steal money at Kennedy Airport.

You paid for the privilege of stealing it. $60,000 went to Sebastian Aloy, the 57year-old Columbbo family capo who controlled Kennedy Airport as his turf. Even though the Leay’s crew did the job, the Columbos owned the airport. You paid or you did not work there again. Another $60,000 went to Paul Vario, the Lucesy Capo who ran Hill’s crew.

Vario had not lifted a finger on the score, but the tribute was automatic. Protection, insurance, the cost of doing business. That left around $300,000 for four men. Hill, Burke, D Simone, and Frenchie McMahon.

They needed a cover story for the sudden cash. Hill Burke and D Simone flew to Las Vegas, dropped $20,000 gambling, and came back bragging they had won big. It was the standard move. Vegas trips explained everything.

Hill put a down payment on a 1967 gold Buick Riviera with a black top and financed the rest under his brother’s name. D Simone bought a beige Cadillac with a black top. Neither of them put a single purchase in their own names. Paulie had taught Hill that lesson years ago at the cab stand.

Never put your name on any anything. At Aqueduct Racetrack a few weeks later, Paul Vario pulled Hill aside. Vario had a deal. A bookmaker named Milty War needed cash.

Wikar had garment center executives, Wall Street brokers, doctors, and dentists for clients. He never took a bet under $500. Vario said Hill could buy a 50% stake in the operation for $50,000. They shook hands in Vario’s car right there at the track.

No lawyers, no paperwork, no signatures. Hill was 24 years old and he was in the bookmaking business. Hill always believed the Air France score was the robbery that made his reputation. Not Lufanza, not the airport hijackings, not the credit card schemes or the cigarette runs. $420,000 from a locked room without a gun, without a getaway car, without anybody getting hurt.

It proved to Paul Vario that Henry Hill could plan a complex operation, hold his nerve, keep his people in line, and deliver results. Before Air France, Hill was an errand boy with a Union card. After Air France, he was an earner. 11 years later, on December 11th, 1978, the same crew went back to Kennedy Airport. Same airport, same cargo terminal complex, same kind of score, except this time it was $5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewels from the Lufansza cargo building.

Jimmy Burke planned it. Tommy Desimone was one of the gunmen. Frenchie McMahon was on the crew. Henry Hill helped set it up.

The Lufansza heist became the largest cash robbery in American history. The centerpiece of Good Fellas and the event that destroyed everyone involved. The Air France job had taught them everything, how the cargo terminals worked, how the shift changes created windows, how the tribute system kept the peace between families, how to spend the money without attracting attention. In 1967, they had walked out with $420,000 and nobody got hurt.

In 1978, they walked out with $6 million, and Jimmy Burke spent the next 6 months killing everyone who asked for their share. Scorsesei couldn’t show any of this when Good Fellas was released in 1990. The film is 2 hours and 26 minutes long, and the Luanza heist needed to be the centerpiece. The Air France job was compressed into a single shot of a guard handing over a key.

The hooker, the motel, the locksmith sprint, the 15 out of 18 keys, the seven canvas bags with the red seals. All of it was reduced to 30 seconds of screen time so the film could get to the robbery that would destroy everyone involved. Even Hill couldn’t resist inflating the number. In Pelgi’s Wise Guy, Hill claimed the take was $480,000.

The New York Times said $420,000. The math is the same. Seven bags at $60,000 each equals $420,000. Henry Hill added $60,000 to his own greatest hit.

Henry Hill died on June 12th, 2012 at the age of 69 in a private room at Cedar Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. He was the last surviving member of the crew. Over the decades, every one of his partners from the Air France job was killed. Frenchie McMahon was shot in the back of the head on the same night Lou Wernern was convicted in connection with Lufansa.

Tommy Desimone was murdered by the Gambino family in January of 1979. the same Tommy Desimone who would um who would be immortalized as Joe Peshy’s Tommy Devito in Good Fellas, including the infamous Billy Bats murder scene. Jimmy Burke died in prison in 1996. Paul Vario died in federal prison in Texas in 1988. Henry Hill outlived all of them.

The score that made him was the one where nobody carried a gun.