CRIME: Record Haul

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"Get out of there, you bastards!" yelled the submachine gunner. Out got the driver. Under orders from their leader, three robbers entered the armored car, began transferring money bags to one of their automobiles, the rear seat cushion of which had been removed. Another sprang up to the office on the platform, jerked out the telephone connection. Still others cowed the surrounding crowd, disarmed the guards, forced them under the loading platform. The men in the armored car had not finished unloading all the sacks when the leader yelled: "Scram!" Without firing a shot the robbers leaped into their machines, roared off around the corner, down past the Bath Beach police station. The armored car men grabbed up an abandoned machine gun, fired a few bursts as they gave chase. But their truck was no match for the bandits' swift cars, two of which simply melted away into the city's traffic. The third was seen more than an hour later as it pulled up to a dock, 19 blocks from the scene of the robbery. Three men carrying two white bags got out, jumped into a cabin cruiser called Popeye and another speedboat. They, too, vanished across Gravesend Bay.

Caught flatfooted, police rushed to the Rubel plant. If the smart execution of the robbery was amazing, its dimensions were even more so. Well could the bandits have afforded to leave behind $29,000. They had snatched $427,950 in cash, a record robbery of its kind. All of it was in old bills, practically impossible to trace.