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THE FIRST ACCOUNTING of cargo thefts at Ke
Besides the airline security perso
"Air France made me. No one had ever pulled that kind of cash out of the airport before, and I did it without a gun. It began around the end of January in 1967. I had been selling cigarettes out at the airport. I had a regular route, and one of my best stops was at the Air France cargo dock. Bobby McMahon, the cargo foreman, was one of my best customers. He also used to come across stuff once in a while, and we'd buy perfume, clothes, and jewelry from him. Bobby McMahon had been with Air France for so long his nickname was "Frenchy," and there wasn't too much about the whole cargo operation he didn't know. He could tell by looking at bills of lading and freight- forwarding orders what was coming in and what was going out. Since he ran the whole operation at night, he could go anywhere he wanted and pick up anything he needed. Nobody watched anybody out there anyway, but Frenchy had carte blanche. Once he came across a small 24-by-48-inch box of silk dresses, which Jimmy unloaded at the garment center for eighteen thousand dollars and which Frenchy got a piece of. Frenchy always got a piece of anything he brought us or pointed us toward.
"Then one day I'm there and Frenchy tells me about money coming in. He said they were building a new strong room with cement blocks where the old wire cage room had been, and in the meantime they were storing all the valuables in the cargo office right up front as you entered the cargo warehouse. Frenchy said the money was in sixty-thousand-dollar packages in large white canvas bags with big red seals over the side flaps. He said there were usually three or four of the canvas bags dropped off by planes coming in from overseas and that they were usually picked up in the morning by armored trucks. Three or four guys with pistols could easily take the load.
"I was really excited. I drove over to Robert's and told Jimmy. He knew Frenchy had great information, so that weekend Raymond Montemurro, his brother Monte, Tommy DeSimone, and me go over to stick the joint up. Joh
"When I met with Frenchy I told him we needed another way. He said it was tricky, because he never knew exactly when the money was coming in. Sometimes it wouldn't come in for a couple of weeks, and then there'd be two deliveries at once and they'd leave for the bank the same day. The money came from American tourists and soldiers who converted their American cash into French money. The French would then send all that cash back to the United States and get credited for it in American banks. It was usually in hundreds and fifties, and it was untraceable. It was a dream score.
"Meanwhile, every time I went to the airport to sell cigarettes, I'd stop by and talk with Frenchy. As we talked I'd watch the workmen get closer and closer to finishing the new storeroom, and then one day the storeroom was finished. There were two keys. Frenchy? No such luck. They gave one of the keys to a guard from a private agency; he had a crewcut and took his job very seriously. He loved being a cop. He loved guarding doors. The guy never let the key out of his sight. If Frenchy had to put something in the room, the guard would never give Frenchy the key— he'd open the door and wait until Frenchy was done and then he'd personally lock the door himself. He wore the key on a key ring attached to his belt. The only other key we knew about belonged to the supervisor of the entire operation, and he worked days.
"The problem with just sticking the guy up and taking his key was that we never knew when the money would be there. We had to have a key of our own so that we could get in there at a moment's notice from Frenchy. If we stuck the guy up and got the key, they'd just change the locks, and we'd also alert them that we knew about the money. I figured we had to get the key, so I asked Frenchy to start making up to the guy. Buy him some drinks. Bullshit a little Meanwhile Frenchy gave me the guy's address. He lived in a furnished room on Rockaway Boulevard, near Liberty Avenue, across from the White Castle hamburger joint. One day when the guard was off, Raymond Montemurro and I waited all day for him to leave, and when he did we burglarized his apartment, looking for the key. The plan was to get the key, make a copy, and put it back so no one knew. Then, when the money arrived, we'd have the key to a fortune.
"We went in and out of every drawer in the place and we couldn't find the key. The sonofabitch must have carried it around with him even on his day off. I couldn't believe it. I had a fortune waiting for me and I'm stuck with a hundred-dollar-a-week nut job for a guard. The other problem was that Jimmy was getting impatient. He was begi