NEW YORK — More than 30 years after hooded gunmen pulled a $6 million airport heist dramatized in the Martin Scorsese movie “Goodfellas,” a reputed mobster was arrested at his New York City home Thursday and charged in the robbery and a 1969 murder.
Vincent Asaro, 78, was named along with his son, Jerome, and three other defendants in a wide-ranging indictment alleging murder, robbery, extortion, arson and other crimes from the late 1960s through last year.
The Asaros, both identified as captains in the Bonanno organized crime family, pleaded not guilty through their attorneys and were ordered held without bail at a brief appearance in federal court in Brooklyn.
The indictment accused Vincent Asaro of helping to direct the Dec. 11, 1978, Lufthansa Airlines heist at Kennedy airport — one of the largest cash thefts in American history. The gunmen looted a vault in the airline’s cargo terminal and stole about $5 million in untraceable U.S. currency that was being returned to the United States from Germany, along with about $1 million in jewelry. The cash was never found.
