The Last Good Heist

The Inside Story of The Biggest Single Payday in the Criminal History of the Northeast

Wayne Worcester; Randall Richard and Tim White

On Aug. 14, 1975, eight daring thieves ransacked 148 massive safe-deposit boxes at a secret bank used by organized crime, La Cosa Nostra, and its associates in Providence, R.I. The crooks fled with duffle bags crammed full of cash, gold, silver, stamps, coins, jewels and high-end jewelry. The true value of the loot has always been kept secret, partly because it was ill-gotten to begin with, and partly because there was plenty of incentive to keep its true worth out of the limelight. It's one thing for authorities to admit they didn't find a trace of goods worth from $3 million to $4 million, and entirely another when what was at stake was more accurately valued at about $30 million, the equivalent of $120 million today. It was the biggest single payday in the criminal history of the Northeast. Nobody came close, not the infamous James "Whitey" Bulger, not John "The Dapper Don" Gotti, not even the Brinks or Wells Fargo robbers. The heist was bold enough and big enough to rock the underworld to its core, and it left La Cosa Nostra in the region awash in turmoil that still reverberates nearly 38 years later. "The Last Good Heist" is the inside story of the robbery and its aftermath.

Globe Pequot

Pages: 256 • Trim: 5½ x 8½

978-1-4930-0959-6 • Paperback • August 2016 • $18.95 • (£14.99)

978-1-4930-2330-1 • eBook • August 2016 • $17.99 • (£13.99)

Subjects: History / United States / 20th Century, History / United States / State & Local / New England (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT), True Crime / Organized Crime

The Last Good Heist

The Inside Story of The Biggest Single Payday in the Criminal History of the Northeast

Paperback

eBook

Summary

On Aug. 14, 1975, eight daring thieves ransacked 148 massive safe-deposit boxes at a secret bank used by organized crime, La Cosa Nostra, and its associates in Providence, R.I. The crooks fled with duffle bags crammed full of cash, gold, silver, stamps, coins, jewels and high-end jewelry. The true value of the loot has always been kept secret, partly because it was ill-gotten to begin with, and partly because there was plenty of incentive to keep its true worth out of the limelight. It's one thing for authorities to admit they didn't find a trace of goods worth from $3 million to $4 million, and entirely another when what was at stake was more accurately valued at about $30 million, the equivalent of $120 million today. It was the biggest single payday in the criminal history of the Northeast. Nobody came close, not the infamous James "Whitey" Bulger, not John "The Dapper Don" Gotti, not even the Brinks or Wells Fargo robbers. The heist was bold enough and big enough to rock the underworld to its core, and it left La Cosa Nostra in the region awash in turmoil that still reverberates nearly 38 years later. "The Last Good Heist" is the inside story of the robbery and its aftermath.

Details

Globe Pequot

Pages: 256 • Trim: 5½ x 8½

978-1-4930-0959-6 • Paperback • August 2016 • $18.95 • (£14.99)

978-1-4930-2330-1 • eBook • August 2016 • $17.99 • (£13.99)

Subjects: History / United States / 20th Century, History / United States / State & Local / New England (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT), True Crime / Organized Crime

Author

Tim White is a prize-winning investigative reporter for WPRI-TV, the CBS affiliate in Providence; Randall Richard is a former investigative reporter and international correspondent for the Providence Journal and national reporter at the Associated Press, and Wayne Worcester is a former reporter and editor at the Providence Journal, novelist, essayist and now a journalism professor at the University of Connecticut.