Gunmen hijack a mail truck in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and make off with $1.5 million.

The Plymouth Mail robbery, or what the press called “The Great Plymouth Mail Truck Robbery” was, at that point in time, the largest cash robbery of all time. On the 14th August  1962, the two gunmen stopped a US Mail truck which was delivering $1.5 million in smaller bills from Cape Cod in Massachusetts to the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston, Massachusetts. The hijacking occurred on Route 3 in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The two robbers who were dressed as police officers and where carrying submachine guns, tied up the driver and the guard and then drove the truck themselves to some unknown destinations, where the money was dropped off in several places. The truck and its two captured occupants were then left in Randolph, Massachusetts alongside Route 128.

A federal grand jury later indicted four men and one woman for this robbery. One of those indicted just before trial and has never been found. The other defendants were acquitted at trial. The $1.5 million in cash (equivalent to almost $12 million in 2013 dollars) has never been found.

A Boston mobster, Vincent “Fat Vinnie” Teresa, who was a a lieutenant of Raymond L.S. Patriarca, made the claim in his book called, My Life in the Mafia, that it was John “Red” Kelley who actually planned the robbery. Kelly allegedly got 80 cents on the dollar when the money was finally laundered.