Kennedy International Airport on December 11, 1978.
An estimated $5.875 million (equivalent to $22.6 million in 2018) was stolen, with $5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewelry, making it the largest cash robbery committed on American soil at the time.
In popular culture, it is the main subject of two well-known television films—The 10 Million Dollar Getaway (1991) and The Big Heist (2001)—and is a key plot element in the film Goodfellas (1990).
The heist's magnitude made it one of the longest-investigated crimes in the United States; the latest arrest associated with the robbery was made in 2014.
Jimmy Burke was reputed to be the mastermind of the robbery, but he was never officially charged in connection with the crime.