Lufthansa Heist

The inside story—from the organizer himself--of the largest unrecovered cash haul in history. This full account brings readers behind the heist memorialized in Goodfellas, a crime that has baffled law enforcement for decades. From Henry Hill himself, The Lufthansa Heist is the last book he worked on before his 2012 death. On December 11, 1978, a daring armed robbery rocked Kennedy Airport, resulting in the largest unrecovered cash haul in world history, totaling six million dollars. The perpetrators were never apprehended and thirteen people connected to the crime were murdered in homicides that, like the crime itself, remain unsolved to this day. The burglary has fascinated the public for years, dominating headlines around the globe due to the story’s unending ravel of mysteries that baffled the authorities.One of the organizers of the sensational burglary, Henry Hill, who passed away in 2012, in collaboration with Daniel Simone, has penned an unprecedented “tell-all” about the robbery with never-before-unveiled details, particulars only known to an insider. In 2013, this infamous criminal act again flared up in the national news when five reputed gangsters were charged in connection to the robbery. This latest twist lends the project an extraordinary sense of timing, and the legal proceedings of the newly arrested suspects will unfold over the next year, continuing to keep the Lufthansa topic in the news.

The late Henry Hill entered the Federal Witness Protection Program in 1980 and assisted the government in building cases against forty-six top Mafia associates, severely wounding the major five gangland organizations. He collaborated with author Nick Pileggi on the book Wiseguy, which became a New York Times #1 Best Seller. In 1990, Nick Pileggi and Martin Scorsese adapted Wiseguy to a screenplay, and with Henry Hill’s guidance, Mr. Scorsese directed the film. Until he died in 2012, Henry Hill toured the country on speaking engagements lecturing high school students not to emulate his past life and career. Daniel Simone is a writer who has co-written autobiographies and published numerous shorter pieces on prominent figures in film, theater, and fiction. He created and wrote a monthly feature for Long Island Pulse magazine called “Between the Lines” where he interviewed and profiled renowned novelists. In September of 2012, he appeared in the one-hour Biography Channel documentary Mobsters: Jimmy the Gent Burke, which centered on the life and career of Jimmy Burke.