In the bitter January cold of 1950, as postwar Boston moved into a new decade with money, optimism, and old grudges in the air, seven masked men slipped into the Brink’s depot in the North End. No shots were fired. No alarms sounded. In less than half an hour, they disappeared with more than $2.7 million, the largest haul in American history at the time.
It was quickly cast as the crime of the century, planned with extraordinary care, carried out with nerve, and for nearly six years seemingly impossible to solve. But like so many “perfect” crimes, it did not collapse because outsiders broke the code. It collapsed because the money ran short, trust gave way, and the men who had kept quiet together began turning on one another.