Cracking the Lufthansa Caper

Spending and feuding break up a pack of thieves

They had pulled off the biggest holdup in U.S. history with professional perfection, but the $5,850,000 in cash and jewelry turned them giddy, as well it might. The gang that seized the loot from a Lufthansa Airlines cargo facility at New York City's Kennedy International Airport last December quickly committed blunders unworthy of a teenage shoplifting ring. As a result, two of the gang were under arrest last week, one was murdered, another was presumed dead and the identity of the others was known to the FBI and New York police.

As it usually does, the FBI credited its "intensive investigation" and "confidential informants" with breaking the case. In fact, FBI agents, New York undercover cops and even such gangwise newsmen as Jimmy Breslin, who first detailed the robbers' troubles, knew where to begin looking right after the sensational heist. They all searched their files and memories for the names of former habitues of Roberts Lounge, a bar near the airport where known cargo thieves, airline cargo handlers and plainclothes cops mingled, drank and bet on horses. The bar changed hands two years ago, but its current customers buzzed with gossip about the huge theft. Both federal and local investigators promptly began tailing the most likely suspects. Their problem was not so much whodunit, but how to prove it.

The biggest blunder was made by Angelo Sepe, 37, a mob-connected hood who was on parole from an armed-robbery conviction. Unable to resist enjoying his new wealth, he ordered a sporty 1979 Thunderbird --and paid for the car with $9,000 in cash. He also bought a new Cadillac for his girlfriend. Before he picked up the T-bird, however, FBI agents fitted it with an eavesdropping bug and a small radio transmitter that constantly signaled its whereabouts. Sepe's next mistake was to boast about the Lufthansa caper to passengers in his car --taped conversations that the FBI found most interesting, especially those with Peter Gruenewald, who worked as a Lufthansa cargo agent.

Gruenewald apparently is blessed, or cursed, with a sympathetic ear. Authorities believe he was also told by Louis Werner, 46, a longtime fellow Lufthansa employee, how Werner had helped set up the robbery. Werner had left his post for more than 90 minutes so that a Brink's crew could not find anyone to sign for the pickup of the cash. That key move kept the money at the airport over a weekend, just as the gang had planned. Werner was promised $300,000 for his role. When Gruenewald seemed nervous about keeping his secret, Werner gave him $ 10,000 to buy his silence. Then Werner too began to flash his cash in public. He paid $10,000 for a GM Sportvan. And he paid in bills, a fact that became known to the FBI.

When agents began to question Gruenewald, he decided it would be prudent not to answer. Instead, he booked airline flights to Bogota, Manila, Tokyo, Taiwan, anywhere far from Queens. Learning of this, FBI agents decided they could wait no longer. They seized Sepe, whose beeping radio made his T-bird easy to follow, and they also grabbed Gruenewald and Werner. The good listener was charged as a material witness. The FBI hopes that his detention will lead gang members to feel that someone who knows a lot is telling all, thus causing even more falling out among the thieves.

While all this was going on, a third suspect in the theft, Thomas DeSimone, 32, was reported missing by his wife. DeSimone has a record of cargo thefts and had just served time for a truck hijacking. The FBI believes he was murdered in a dispute among the thieves over distribution of the Lufthansa loot. New York police are not so sure he is dead. Also thought to be a victim of the gang's dissension was Steven Edwards, 31, an ex-convict whose bullet-riddled body was found in his New York apartment.

While police doubted press reports that two other gangsters had been killed in the feuding, they agree that all the thieves and witnesses are in great danger. The reason: the successors of the deceased Tommy Lucchese, who led a New York Mafia family, are believed to have planned the crime and to be holding most of the loot. The FBI theory is that Joseph DiPalermo, a capo in the Lucchese group, supervised the plot and the disposition of the money and jewels. The authorities believe that the mob got the cooperation of Lufthansa employees on the inside by the time-honored method of inducing them to gamble, pressuring them to pay up, loaning them money at exorbitant rates and, finally, pointing out that they could cancel their debts by helping out with the heist.

The Lufthansa conspiracy included not only six stickup men but three airline employees and one "coach," who directed rehearsals for the operation. The ten were to receive fees ranging from $10,000 to Werner's $300,000. The rest of the loot apparently went to DiPalermo and another Lucchese capo, Paul Vario, one of the regulars at the old Roberts Lounge, who supervises rackets at Kennedy Airport for the mob. By now, the FBI suspects the money probably has been effectively dispersed through a maze of Mafia business channels.

But if the hunted thieves are quarreling, so too are their pursuers. New York police are angry at the FBI for making arrests before more evidence could be pinned down. They think, for one thing, that the coach who took on Lufthansa's Red Baron was James ("Jimmy the Gent") Burke. The former operator of Roberts Lounge, Burke is a crony of Vario's. Shortly before the Lufthansa robbery, Burke was paroled from prison where he was serving time for a previous cargo caper. So far he has refused to answer questions about the Lufthansa heist. Burke has not endeared himself to reform penologists who urge that convicts be placed in the community to help them readjust to life beyond the walls. He was in a New York "halfway house" for just that purpose when the missing Tommy DeSimone was in the same well-meant program. Police believe the two ex-cons seized that happy coincidence to plot the nation's biggest armed robbery.

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