Life of Crime: The Brink’s job

Much has been written about the 1950 Brink’s heist which netted a band of robbers over $1,100,000. It was the biggest haul in an armed robbery up to that time, and kept that record for many years.

I found this 1961 book by one of the robbers interesting. There are other books, including The Big Stick-Up At Brink’s by Noel Behn, which was made into a 1978 movie, The Brink’s Job, with Peter Falk and Peter Boyle.

This article from Life in 1956 tells how the robbers were finally arrested just days before the statute of limitations would have run out. The FBI and Boston cops were no dummies; they knew who had done the job, but it took several years to bring them to justice.

The robbers wore masks, but the masks aren't usually identified. In The Men Who Robbed Brink’s the story is told of Tony Pino buying novelty masks in Chicago for the job. They were of Captain Marvel Jr and Captain Marvel, popular comic book characters of the day. I found the picture of the masks on an FBI website. They are not the actual masks from the robbery, but are the same types of masks the robbers wore.