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- The target is tempting. A haul that could net over $30 million. - From the outside, looks like an ordinary bank. But on the inside it's anything but ordinary. - With ties to big labor, a US president, and the mafia. - There's Nixon campaign money in this one remote bank. - This heist isn't just daring, it's dangerous. - Outside of the vault they hear footsteps. Is he Secret Service? Does he work for the bank? Is he security? Everyone is panicking.
[man coughs] - What the [bleep]? [man coughs] - Maybe this isn't as easy as we thought it might be. - The masterminds behind every great heist see what most people don't: risking everything to pull off the score of a lifetime. It takes a bold plan. the right team. and the skill to stay one step ahead of the law. [jazzy music]
[suspenseful music] - [watch out] Watch out. - This way. [boom] - United California Bank in Laguna Niguel. It's isolated, in a town with a lot of money, and its vault is filled with the safe deposit boxes of wealthy locals.
It's also allegedly heist-proof. [clank] [surf music] - The United California Bank was structurally well built. It had a vault inside about 12 by 15 with very, very thick walls and rebar all the way around it. - The vault door is fireproof and blast proof, and weighs nearly 1,000 pounds. Its time-lock mechanism means that it can't be opened after hours. at least not by law-abiding citizens. - It was significant and state of the art for that time period. - But it has a secret that makes a crew of professional thieves travel 2,400 miles from Ohio to rob it.
- United California Bank, from the outside, looks like an ordinary bank. But on the inside is anything but ordinary. The tipster says that there is a $30 million stash rumored to be dirty money belonging to President Richard Nixon inside this bank. And that's the background that gets this all going. - It's a few months before Watergate and Richard Nixon is already known as Tricky Dick. Nixon is running for reelection and he's amassing his war chest. And the money is coming in from some interesting sources, including the Teamsters.
Jimmy Hoffa, who's the president of the Teamsters, is serving 4 years of a 13-year sentence for bribery and fraud. - Hoffa wants out of prison, so he allegedly tries to cut a deal with President Nixon. As the story goes, Nixon says in exchange for a pardon he wants $3 million and an endorsement from the Teamsters Union. So Hoffa goes along with this agreement. - But the money comes with a condition. - The caveat is that Hoffa cannot serve as the head of the Teamsters for nine whole years. - And when he does get out of prison, he's pissed and he wants his $3 million back.
- Jimmy Hoffa uses his mob ties to figure out that this money, this fund, is held in a bank in little old Laguna Niguel. - And so using his mobster connections, Hoffa decided to call it the best burglars in the country. - The question goes out to mobsters everywhere: who would you use on a bank job if your life depended on it? There's one answer: the Dinsio brothers, out of Youngstown, Ohio. - Cleveland mafia members, on behalf of Hoffa, approached Amil Dinsio and his brother James Dinsio.
The Dinsio brothers, with this $30 million heist, and of course they can't refuse that. - The mastermind will be Amil Dinsio. Born in 1936 to Italian immigrant parents, his father's restaurant hosted backroom gambling run by local mafiosos. These men mentored young Amil in the art of the heist, and he was their star student. - Amil Dinsio is the brains. He's the mastermind. He's methodical, his attention to detail is second to none, and he's exactly who you want in a heist like this.
- I met with Amil Dinsio multiple occasions, and he made it a point to tell me, you know, "We never hurt nobody." - Amil Dinsio is a popular folk hero, and crimes like this were part of the way of life. - So not only is Amil the best burglar in the world, he's also the planner and the recruiter, and he wants to build the best team to pull this thing off. So he starts building his crew, and it starts with his brother James Dinsio. - James Dinsio, who's Amil's older brother, is a self-taught explosives expert. And he has a gift. And we know he has a gift, because he has all 10 fingers.
- James and Amil have been hitting banks since they were teenagers. They've worked together, they trust each other. Together they form the core of the crew. - The deal is that Hoffa is made whole, he gets his $3 million back, the mob gets 5%, and the team splits the rest. - They've done a lot of heists. They've done something like 70-plus heists, but never anything like a $30 million heist. - The brothers' first step is a scout to learn all the obstacles standing between them and $30 million. That means trading Ohio snow for some California sunshine.
- When you're doing a heist, you have to case the place, check out the security, check out the environment. - They're casing the shopping center day and night. How busy is it during the day, after it closes? And what they're finding out is after 10:00 p.m., it's pretty much dead. - The lack of nightlife is expected. But the lack of after-hours security is a welcome surprise. - Laguna Niguel is essentially Sleepy Hollow.
There was very little in the way of law enforcement. The Orange County Sheriff's Department had jurisdiction over the entire county, and at nighttimes they only had allotted one car for South County, which was the entire area from Tustin, California, all the way down to Laguna Niguel. - They realized that the bank closes Friday evening, a cleaning crew comes through, and then they have the whole weekend to do whatever they want in the bank. So Amil and James are casing the place. They are going through the bushes. It's like the dead of night. They're doing it very, very carefully, very covertly, hiding behind these bushes.
They're trying to figure out what makes this bank tick when a car pulls up. - A car pulls up into the plaza, right in front of the bank. A man gets out. He's dressed in dark clothing. Opens up the back door and a German shepherd gets out, and the dog starts patrolling the perimeter of the bank. - The dog, meanwhile, gets closer and closer to them. - Amil and James are thinking, who is this guy? Is he just taking his dog out for a midnight stroll? Or is he some kind of security they didn't know about?
- The Dinsios fear the worst. If this is a canine patrol, they're dead on arrival. - And then the dog starts getting closer and closer to where they're hiding and then looks directly at them. [growling] - With millions on the line, Amil and James Dinsio are scouting the biggest heist of their careers. But an encounter with what looks like a canine patrol could stop this job before it begins. [suspenseful music] [dog barking] - If they get caught, it's all the planning down the drain, millions of dollars down the drain, and then having to answer to the Cleveland mob.
- They think, we've been found out. [dog barking] [man whistles, dog barking] But then the dog leaves. Gets back in the car and they drive away. - Even after the man and the dog leave, there's this wild-card element that they have to contend with. Is he security for the plaza? Is he FBI? Is he Secret Service? And will it get in the way of them pulling this thing off?
- It's an alarming prospect. And has the team worried about what kind of security system the bank has. - What's standard in a bank at this time is an outside alarm, an alarm that makes a sound, and an alarm in the vault, a silent alarm. - Now these guys are pros. They know there are going to be two kinds of alarms. They're creeping around the perimeter of the bank to find that exterior alarm bell. Amil finds it and he notices the company name. - Amil looks up and he sees Diebold Alarm, and a smile is on his face. He knows a lot about Diebold.
He's robbed a number of bank vaults with Diebold, so this is the best-case scenario. - So they have the exterior alarm covered; it's that silent alarm they need more information on. And they know there's going to be at least a wire that goes from the vault to either the police or the alarm company. - Amil and James begin to work out a plan for a two-night heist. Night one, they'll cut a hole through the roof and drop a few feet down onto the top of the vault. They'll disable the loud exterior alarm and then the interior silent alarm that alerts the police.
James will then drill holes down into the vault's ceilings and fill them with explosives. From there, they'll use sandbags to muffle the sound and direct the blast into the vault. On night two, they'll use brute force to bust into hundreds of safe deposit boxes and get the loot. It's simple, but it's a lot of work and the devil will be in the details. - Now that they've completed their very thorough recon and have the broad strokes of a plan, they need to build out the rest of the team. And that means going back to Ohio. - After Amil and James fly home and report in, their mafia handlers make an offer they can't refuse.
They add a mob-connected alarm specialist to their crew. - My name is Philip Christopher, and they call me the Super Thief. Born and raised Cleveland, Ohio. Still there to this day. - Cleveland was home to some of the best burglars in the world. Phil Christopher is known as an alarm guy. They want the best of the best, so they're going to recruit that. - They would come to us because they knew damn well we were the best.
Nobody could beat the alarms like I could. But I got in there, you know, by hook or by crook. I was going to get in there because I wasn't going home empty. - The next member of the Dinsios add to the team is Chuck Mulligan. He'll acquire the specialized gear to get the job done without leaving a trail. - They go to Chuck Mulligan, who is their brother-in-law so they trust him. They've worked with him before. - Meanwhile, James Dinsio begins building some of the custom tools they'll need for the job, including a drill.
one you can't just pick up in your local hardware store. - This drill runs on 2,500 RPMs and has a 3/8-inch carbon tip drill bit that can pulverize concrete. And it is super, super quiet. This is a critical element, because not only will they be able to drill the hole that they need, it'll be quiet enough that no one else will hear it. - Busting into safe deposit boxes takes serious muscle, so the Cleveland mob also adds Charles Broeckel to the team. He's not just an associate, he's also Phil Christopher's cousin.
- He's a mobbed-up partner. He's worked with Phil. He is someone that Phil trusts. - So he's not going to let anything happen to me, you know, because we were close. - The mob puts two of their guys on, so when they're splitting up the money, no one forgets how to do math. - With an ace team, a great plan, and custom gear packed and ready, it's time to fly back to California. The Dinsios are determined that the biggest heist of their careers be flawless. - So Charlie and I got to the airport and they tell Charlie, Charlie, where's our driver's license, our phony ID that we had made up? And he said, oh, I forgot them.
I said, how the hell are we going to get on a plane with no phony ID? Because I had to be careful because I was on probation. - Nobody knows how long the cash will remain in the bank in California, so the heist team has to decide, do they make their move now. or lie low for one more week? - When Charlie Broeckel forgets the fake IDs, they use their real IDs, their real names. They still got on the planes. - I didn't want to do it, but I knew the other guys were on a plane waiting for us and I didn't want to say,
well, we'll catch you on the next flight. I didn't want to make it seem like we didn't know what was doing. - Once they arrive in Laguna Niguel, they're joined by the last member of the crew, getaway driver and radioman Harry Barber. - So Harry Barber is a nephew. Again, it's mostly a family affair. These are people he's worked with, these are people he trusts. - Chuck Mulligan picks up the last items on his unusual shopping list, walkie talkies, nitroglycerine, and a getaway car.
The team gathers for final preparations. - Harry Barber rented a place down there at the West Nine in Laguna Niguel, which is a condominium area about a couple of miles east from the bank. - It was like perfect. The condo's on the edge of the golf course, so nobody's going to see us approach the bank at all. - At 10:00 p.m. on Friday, the heist team heads out, carrying their tools across the golf course. on the way to a different kind of green.
- Charlie Mulligan takes his position on top of the hill as we walk down the embankment. - For the duration of this mission, he's the lookout. Harry Barber stays back at the condo, listening to the police scanner, and he's on standby with the getaway car in case anything goes wrong. [police radio chatter] [suspenseful music] - Friday, March 24, 1972, at 11:00 p.m., the Dinsio crew is ready to put their plan, their gear, and their nerves to the test. The heist starts now.
- Amil, James, and Phil make their way up the ladder to the roof, leaving Broeckel down below as a secondary lookout. Their first order of business? To cut a hole in the roof to get to the vault below. - We were drilling our holes where we estimated the top of the vault would be. Then we drilled four holes in the square and then got a saw and cut it and then made sure we didn't drop it because it might have a vibration alarm inside the vault. So we had to be careful not to drop anything on there. - So once they have the hole cut, they bring the ladder up from the side of the building and lower it down above the vault.
- Amil and Phil enter the building to look for the vault's silent alarm. As silently as possible. Any vibrations could land the crew in handcuffs. - Amil and I, we crawl down on top of the vault. At this point, we're looking for a junction box where the alarm was coming from inside the vault. - They came in through the roof and they were trying to find the alarm. They were looking for wires all around. - Phil and Amil finally find the junction box that should contain the wires for the silent alarm. But they can't figure out which ones, if any,
are the actual alarm. - They were looking for the wires that will connect to this box that sends a frequency to the police. And they could not for the life of them find these things. - Did they underestimate this suburban bank? Does it have a kind of silent alarm system they've never seen? With millions at stake and the Cleveland mob expecting results, they need answers.fast. - So they're thinking, is this bigger than we ever thought? What's going on? Are we in over our heads? They were freaked out.
- In Laguna Niguel, an elite crew of criminals is attempting to steal $30 million from the United California Bank. But the silent alarm they need to find might as well be invisible. - Amil says, there ain't no alarm. I said, no, there's gotta be an alarm. I said, move over. So I'm checking the same way he was doing. And I said, dang, you're right, what the hell? It's got to be in here somewhere. - They're in the middle of this crazy, intense situation. The clock is ticking and they can't find it.
- Maybe there's another box in here somewhere. So we looked around, looked around, looked around. We couldn't find it. So now we figured we've been in there long enough, let's get out of here. - So after hours of searching, they decide to regroup back at the condo. - But before they leave on that first night, they make sure to cover their tracks, which means the hole that they've cut into the roof, they take it and they put it back and they seal it with a light layer of tar, which means people from above won't know that anything has happened to the roof.
Nobody is the wiser. [dramatic music] - This team of elite thieves isn't feeling very elite right now. The heist of the century? Well, it has fizzled after four hours. They retreat to the condo filled with doubt. If the bank's rumored connection to President Nixon are true, then its security setup could be something they've never seen before. Then, Phil Christopher considers another possibility.
- It dawned on me after a lot of thinking, could it be possible they got it the old way? I mean, no, they can't have it. I mean, can they have it? - Phil suspects that the silent alarm might be the simplest kind there is, a configuration so out of date that they can't imagine a well-protected bank would still use it. - They're unsure. It looks almost too simple for what this heist is. - At this time, they expected the bank had the kind of alarm that they would need all their sophisticated tools to jump. But what if it has the old style of alarm?
- And Amil and James, they look at one another, and look back at me--you know, it's possible, you know? - After dark on day two, the crew hikes back across the golf course to the bank to see if they can salvage the job. - Considering the Cleveland mob indicates that there might be Nixon campaign funds in the bank, they're thinking to themselves, can it really be this simple? - The team is risking 30 million on Phil's guess, but before he tries to jump or bypass the interior vault alarm, Amil Dinsio needs to disable the exterior one. To do this, he takes some inspiration from the local surf scene.
- To beat the exterior alarm, Amil uses this liquid surf foam that is used to prepare surfboards. - Amil drills a hole in the audible alarm and injects a fast-setting foam that causes the alarm bell to seize up and not gong. - So they have the exterior alarm covered; it's that silent alarm they need to jump. It looks like Phil was right; it looks like a closed-loop circuit alarm. - And a closed-loop circuit alarm can be bypassed by creating a loop that keeps the circuit from breaking. - And the alarm system thinks that it's still guarding the vault.
- Because if you cut it, it'll be an open circuit; that's when the alarm goes off. - So they have to keep the circuit going while they're both cutting the wire, soldering it almost instantaneously. [suspenseful music] - They retreat to the nearby bushes to watch and wait. If they're right about the silent alarm, they'll be heading back into the bank. If they're wrong, they might be heading to jail. After 20 minutes, Harry radios them. No alarms, no police, no problem. except one-- Time. - So they're behind schedule, the clock is ticking, they're under pressure, there is a lot at stake.
- The next step involves backbreaking work. Before they can bring bags of loot down from the roof, they need to bring bags of sand up to it. - The sandbags not only serve as a way to muffle the sound, but also to direct the energy downward as they explode into the vault. - That is intensive work that requires some muscles. They definitely had muscle with them. - With sandbags in place, the team is ready to blast down through steel-reinforced concrete.
It's the part of the plan that separates the pros from the amateurs, and if they're not careful, limbs from torsos. - So James, our explosive expert, gets to work drilling holes in the roof of the vault and filling it with nitroglycerin putty. There's a very delicate balance filling these holes. You need enough nitroglycerin putty to get into the vault, but not too much so everything crumbles or anyone hears you. - People think it just blows up, but no. You put the dynamite cap in and then put the wires together to bring them all up to the top of the roof.
This is a good way of blowing the concrete out. - And then when that's all hooked up together, got to know what they're doing or they're going to meet their maker. [muffled boom] [exciting music] - So this is the moment of truth. They have these giant sandbags, they've placed the explosives in the holes. - They're very excited to get this going. They want this to be a one-shot deal. - James looks at Amil, nods. James flips the switch.
[click] Boom! - Sometimes the phrase "blowing the roof off a place" is a figure of speech. On this job, it's real. The Dinsio's explosive charges breach the vault roof of the United California Bank in Laguna Niguel and they're in. - And it's incredible. You expect to hear this loud explosion, and they felt it in their bodies but all they heard was a muffled thud.
- And it's exciting. And it's great. But they're also worried that maybe they've tripped something. So they have to make sure that there's no alarms that are sounded, that nobody has been notified of this explosion or otherwise. They check in back at the condo, make sure the police scanner hasn't heard anything. - No one hears it. No one calls the police. No car alarms are going off. - So now it's showtime. They have to cut through a few pieces of rebar and they're in the vault.
- Dinsio's crew is now inside what some mobsters call Nixon's vault. They still have to contend with 500 safe deposit boxes, but they're so close now they can practically smell the money. - Whenever you got into a vault or a safe was always exciting because you find out what reward you had coming to you. - They see these 500 pristine security boxes, just Nixon's money waiting for them to take it. Now, this is really tough work. They have so many safety deposit boxes to bust into, and not a lot of time. They're in this tiny vault. The clock is ticking and they've got to get as many of these as they can before their time is up.
- Rocco comes in. He's the muscle, and he's going to help them open those 500 safety deposit boxes. - There was a special tool that was used on this job, and that tool was a snout nose hammer, in which the end of the hammer was milled to the circumference of the lock boxes. So you place that hammer up against the lock, you take a sledge, and you pound the lock through. And then you're in. [dynamic music] - Charlie and I started working, hammering, beating on these boxes, popping them open. - They're finding money, they're finding jewelry, they're finding valuables.
- It was the score of a lifetime. - There's so much money in this place, you know our hearts are pounding, we're sweating there. I mean, there's so much that it's burning our eyes and because of the adrenaline, the heat, and the work. - With less than five hours to go before sunrise, the Dinsio gang works hard to bag as much loot as possible. But delays have run out the clock, and they still haven't found the so-called Nixon cash. As dawn approaches, they have a $30 million decision to make. - It comes to a point where they have to decide, should we keep going or should we get out while we can?
- And by dawn, even though they didn't get all the boxes they call it-- it's time to get out of there. - The Dinsio crew retreats through the diminishing darkness to the safety of the condo. The team spends all day Sunday debating whether to take the loot already in hand or risk one more night in the vault for more. - The guys are on edge, but they listen to the police scanner the whole next day. Nothing. Laguna Niguel is blissfully unaware that their bank is being robbed.
- They have a great crew and they have a great opportunity, so they make their way back. [edgy music] - The crew decides going back into the vault on Sunday night is less risky than going back to the mob empty-handed. - There's no more cutting, there's nothing left to blow up--they just spend the whole night going through those boxes and getting that loot. - They found a treasure trove. - It's euphoric and sweaty, and then all of a sudden they get a call on the walkie talkie.
- James says, quiet, quiet. We all stop, what, what? He's pointing to the walkie. And Mulligan says, somebody just pull up in front of the place. - It gets worse. Mulligan lets them know that somebody got out of the car and is heading towards the bank. And they're thinking the worst. - I said, oh s***. Then Charlie says, he's coming inside. We're just beside ourselves now. What are we going to do here?
He comes inside and we're all listening because we don't understand. We've got the alarms shut down and everything. What the hell is going on here? - And outside of the vault they hear footsteps, footsteps walking slowly around the bank. They are trying to make no sound at all if at all possible. [coughing] - It's so quiet. Next thing we know, Charlie coughs. We turn to look at him. [coughing] What the [bleep]? - Dinsio Crew is finally getting their hands on the real money when an uninvited visitor arrives. And at the most pressure-packed moment
of the heist, Charlie Broeckel chokes, literally. - Amil and James look at him, too, in disbelief. Coughing--now we're listening real hard. We're listening to see if the guy might have heard us. [suspenseful music] - Keep in mind, they're in a confined space, and there's particles of dust, particles of concrete, and he cannot stop coughing. - Then Charlie coughs again. I was in disbelief. I look at him, get the [bleep] outta here. You know? He's trying to climb around to get up on the stool to get up on top of the cabinets so he can go up out of the hole. And he put his feet in our hands
and we just like threw him all the way up to the hole to get him out of there, you know? - And then they wait for 30 agonizing minutes. Finally, Mulligan gets on the walkie. The person has left. Harry chimes in, there's no chatter on the police scanner. They gather up as much loot as they can, and they get out of there. - So after the guy came out and he got in his car and he took off, well, we figured we were good to go. - The heist team has miraculously pulled off the biggest haul of their careers. With sunrise minutes away, it's time to make those millions disappear.
- They give themselves extra time by giving a coup de grace to the vault door. They disable the door by driving something into the locking mechanism. - Amil Dinsio showing his expertise, he's able to damage the vault lock from the inside, so that when Monday morning arrives and employees return to work, they're not going to be able to get inside this vault right away. The gang is cutting it close, so this is going to buy them more time to hopefully get away safely. - I felt like Santa Claus when I was going back to the condo.
- So they get back to the condo, and it's the first time seeing what they got. And it is a fortune. And according to Amil Dinsio, they got the Nixon millions and more. - When I pressed Amil for details, he smiled. - It proved out to be a great job. It was $30 million, you know, can't ask for more than that when you're a burglar. By the time I went to lay down to sleep, Charlie already had $20 million, and there was that much more, if not more, left to be tabulated.
There was around $30 million to $40 million that I could see. - And by the time the bank opens on Monday morning, the crew is not even in Southern California. The Cleveland guys are flying home, and Amil, James, and Chuck are heading to Vegas to fence the loot. - I recall sometime around mid-morning, my partner at the time says, I just got a call from United California Bank. He said, they told me they can't get into their vault.
We think we need you down here. There's a hole in the roof. Jim says, don't touch anything. We'll be right down. I drove down to the bank. I go over to the vault, and I'm looking down. You looked right into the vault down below. You knew right then and there, this is a career case. - Initially, investigators fear the thieves stole $50,000. But reported losses soon passed $2 million, $4 million, $8 million. That's when the FBI realizes this heist is unlike any they've ever seen.
- We told them it was going to be a big one. We're going to have manpower. - I was working bank robberies in the Los Angeles office at the time the Laguna Niguel burglary occurred. And I got involved shortly thereafter when we realized that the loss was substantially greater. - The FBI realizes this is a big deal, so they put eight agents on the case. - J. Edgar Hoover is the boss of the FBI during this time period. Mr. Hoover was a very motivated guy, and therefore he motivated us.
- Then J. Edgar Hoover gets involved and the number of agents jumps from eight to 125 in the first few weeks. - Hoover personally committing the FBI to the case stokes rumors about what might have been stolen from the sleepy little bank in Laguna Niguel. 2,000 miles away, the crew is confident they made a clean getaway. So when a Amil Dinsio gets a new tip, it's too tempting to pass up. - They decide to do another heist. This one is in Lordstown, Ohio, at a bank across the street from a GM factory. I talked to Dinsio about this, and I was like, why would you do this at this point?
You just got all this money. They decided a haul like this doesn't come around often, let's do it again. - I don't believe we should have made another move on that Lordstown bank because we had so much already, we didn't need that job. I had a bad feeling about it. - There's a lot of similarities in ammo, method of operation, between the two. So much so that it was pretty clear that our players were involved in that bank burglary. I concluded that we needed to figure out how the bad guys got to Laguna Niguel, California. We had identified a large group of people.
We asked the major hubs for airlines to run all of these names through their system. We found subsequently the five names we were looking for within a couple of days. - I admired the job they did. They were fantastic bank burglars but lousy criminals. - The phone records gave us a witness named Earl Dawson who turned out to be living in Tustin, California, and a friend of Mulligan's. - I got the call late in the afternoon to check out Earl Randall Dawson. But the thing that really hit me is his place of birth was Youngstown, Ohio. And you don't have to be an FBI agent to say that's a clue.
- Frank Calley and his partner go to Earl Dawson's residence and show him photos of the usual suspects. He immediately picks out Chuck Mulligan and says his old friend from Ohio asked if he could park a car in Earl's garage for a few weeks. - While I'm talking to him, the phone rings and he picks it up. He looks at me, and he-- just a sec, I'll be right with you. He says, it's Mulligan.
- June 1972, more than nine weeks after one of the largest heists in history, the Feds get one of the most implausible breaks of their careers. They're interviewing an associate of Dinsio's gang when Chuck Mulligan phones to discuss getting rid of evidence. - I said, do you mind if we listen in on the conversation? Mulligan says, hey, Earl, how you been? Then he said, I'm flying out to LA tonight, get there late, and then I'm going to come down to your house.
I got to get rid of the car in the garage, he says. Have the FBI or anybody been around? And he said, no, nobody's been around down here. He says, are you sure? He said, no, nobody's come around. [suspenseful music] And I said, this guy we can trust. - Could the car in the garage Mulligan is coming to get rid of be the vehicle used in the heist? Calley tells the FBI bosses that a suspect is coming to him, and he quickly gets a warrant to search the vehicle. - They pop open the trunk and they find ski masks, they find guns, and they find the tools that were used in the Laguna Niguel heist.
- It was clear that everything in the car, everything in the trunk had been wiped down significantly, with the exception of a fingerprint behind the mirror when somebody apparently was adjusting the mirror. - Mulligan shows up. I walked up, said, Mulligan? And he said, yes. The FBI. He said, what? I said, you're under arrest. - A true professional, Mulligan doesn't rat out his crew. Even when FBI agents locate the condo Harry Barber rented, the heist team isn't worried.
They're confident they've made quite literally a clean getaway. - That place was wiped from ceiling to floor of anything that could possibly be evidence, anything, with the exception of the dishwasher. Five people were identified from the fingerprints on dirty dishes, in that someone forgot to push the Start button. Fingerprints will get you every time. [laughing] - They knew who did it, they knew. They just couldn't figure out how they were going to jam us. And that's why they were on this like night and day.
- They had a great plan. They had the appropriate team players. They had the right bank. They had everything. However, they were above it all. Now let's go to Lordstown. - FBI agents in Ohio arrest Amil Dinsio, and in a search of his house, find rare coins belonging to one of the United California Bank customers. Agents also find cash they can trace to the Lordstown bank job. From there, they focus on the so-called super thief, Phil Christopher.
- The FBI come to my home, and they came there to arrest me for a probation violation. And sure enough, because I didn't have the phony ID that day I went on the airplane-- they would have never got me. Never would have got me. - In October 1972, 215 days after the heist, trials are held for both the Laguna Niguel and Lordstown jobs. For all their meticulous planning, the Dinsio crew didn't plan on this. - Amil Dinsio, Charles Mulligan, and Phil Christopher are convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison. James is convicted and gets sentenced to 15 years.
Harry Barber is a fugitive for eight years before he's caught. - But what about the huge haul taken from the United California Bank? Whatever happened to what Amil Dinsio insisted were Nixon's millions? - After a heist of $20 million, even $30 million or more, only a small fraction was ever recovered. - I don't think there's a good final estimate. I personally believe it's $50 million, plus or minus. - But the feds, they recovered somewhere between $2 million and $4 million.
There is a lot more money out there. According to the burglars, it's something between $12 million and $30 million. Where's the rest of the money? - Somebody out there got rich off this heist. [jazzy music] - For some, the missing money just reinforces the Dinsio gang's reputation. [explosion blasts] As the best heist crew ever. - I haven't seen anybody compare to us. You tell me if we're the best. I know we are.
Even the FBI said we were the best. - That burglary just blew everybody away. They were meticulous. This is the biggest bank burglary in history at that time in America with a very sophisticated plan and some major bad guys. - In the case of the United California Bank burglary, there are still unanswered questions. Was labor leader Jimmy Hoffa really the catalyst? Was he trying, as mastermind Amil Dinsio insists, to get back what he considered his money? Whatever the answers, the ingenious plan, bold execution, and millions of dollars associated with the United California Bank job place it
among history's greatest heists.
