Inside the Lufthansa HEI$T: The FBI Lied

Epilogue

INTRODUCTION

I was a victim of a crime. Let me rephrase that. I was a victim, at the time, of the largest armed robbery in our country’s history: The Lufthansa heist on December 11, 1978.

The FBI and the Organized Crime Strike Force, Eastern District of New York, were supposed to be working for me: the crime victim, the taxpayer. They failed miserably.

From the very start, the investigation was pitifully conducted. Were members of law enforcement totally incompetent, above the law, or were their loyalties elsewhere?

This is my story. I was on my own. I kept notes.

KERRY WHALEN

Chapter 1

If you scream again, we’ll kill you.

I grew up six miles from the busy runways of John F. Kennedy International Airport. Six miles from what would become a notorious crime scene.

The constant flow of aircraft crisscrossing the skies above Valley Stream always caught my eye. In 1969, the blue and white Pan Am Boeing 747 jumbo jets started flying and became my all-time favorite. A Pan Am 747 advertising poster, obtained from a city subway car, hung proudly in my bedroom for years.

As a teenager, I felt the airport would be an exciting place to work. There was interesting vehicles to operate, pretty flight attendants to dream about, and sleek jet aircraft to fly me around the world. An airline job offered excellent pay, health, and travel benefits, so to this kid, who thought Lake George was a premier vacation destination, it was a no-brainer.

I worked numerous low paying jobs through high school and during my two years at Nassau Community College. After graduation, I transferred to Adelphi University with a major in accounting. The difference in tuition was huge, so I had to work full time in New York City’s financial district to survive. Unfortunately, the long commuting time prevented me from taking enough college credits to graduate in a reasonable amount of time. I needed to find something else.

In 1977, at the age of twenty-two, I accepted part-time employment with Lufthansa German Airlines, at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK). It was just fifteen minutes from home, paid fifty percent more than my hourly wage at Drexel Burnham, and came with full health benefits. Tuition would no longer be a problem because of the endless opportunities to work overtime. Little did I know then, the overtime would prove to be a bit more exciting than anyone could’ve bargained for.

Lufthansa (LH) leased fourteen acres from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, just for their busy cargo department. To pay the rent, LH also handled the cargo of AER Airlines and Royal Air Maroc. The building was approximately three hundred feet long, two hundred feet wide and four stories tall. Ten percent of the building was dedicated to office space and the remaining ninety percent was a huge unheated warehouse. The facility was a constant whirlwind of activity with trucks, tugs, vans, dollies, forklifts, and staff rushing to meet deadlines.

The Boeing 747 freighters docked into the building’s four-story high electronic transport vehicle system. The cargo containers moved directly from the jet into secure storage areas, reducing theft and damage from the outside elements. Visitors from all over the world came to view the computerized ballet of aircraft and machine. Everyone from child to adult, and from mechanic to pilot, found it fascinating.

Two major international cargo airlines were our neighbors. Flying Tigers to the east, Seaboard World Airlines to the south, and North Boundary Road to the north and west. The Belt Parkway was just one minute away.

I arrived at the cargo building to work my scheduled hours, 1600h to 2000h on Sunday, December 10, 1978. LH flight 460, from Frankfurt, West Germany, normally arriving at 0700h, was delayed twelve hours due to inclement weather over Europe. To unload and load 200,000 pounds of cargo and pump 180,000 pounds of fuel onboard the 747 freighter would take two hours. It would take another ten hours to check-in the forty cargo containers. Overtime would be available to anyone wishing to stay and earn the big bucks. It was just another week where I would write my own paycheck.

Al Kroeber, the afternoon shift leader, offered me the overtime and I accepted immediately. At 1830h, Ed Fernandez, the warehouse supervisor, approved the hours until midnight and told me to work on the transfers.

Transfers involved moving cargo to other airlines for their domestic connecting flights. The truck used most often was box truck number three. I went outside on the ramp to get the vehicle, but it wouldn’t start because someone maliciously knocked the transmission gearshift out of alignment. It took fifteen minutes of finagling to get it in gear and then I started moving tons of cargo to the other airlines.

At 2300h, I had to deliver a time-critical, high valuable shipment that was booked on an American Airlines (AA) flight departing early the following morning. AA never accepted any valuables unless they were booked and delivered at the prearranged time.

The High Valuable Room, which we all called, the Val Room, was a cinder block structure ten feet wide by twenty feet long, on the parking lot side of the building. There were two rooms inside connected by an alarmed steel door. The intricacies of the security system were top secret, but I knew it was equipped with silent alarms, motion and sound detectors, panic buttons, and closed circuit television that connected to real time monitors. Unfortunately, nobody ever monitored the monitors.

Only the supervisor was authorized to carry the keys and unlock the doors, so I parked a van in front of the Val Room and paged Ed Fernandez. He promptly arrived and we went in and searched through the small boxes of jewelry, currency, and precious metals packed on the jam-packed shelves: it was like being in Fort Knox.

We dug out the shipment going to American, signed it out, and Ed followed the procedure to secure the Val Room. Before driving the van out of the building, I borrowed $5.00 from Kevin, another part-timer. I was totally broke, with only fumes in my gas tank and loose change in my pocket.

Employees at LH and AA knew there would be a van on the road with a high value shipment because the booking information was in each airline’s computer. To prevent being pulled over and robbed, I regularly checked my rearview mirrors and never allowed myself to be blocked in by other vehicles. The transfer went smoothly and I returned at 2345h.

Rudi Eirich, the midnight supervisor was now on duty and he asked me to keep working until 0700h, Monday morning. That would be a fifteen-hour day, some of it at double time. I agreed to stay as long as possible because the overtime would pay off the spring tuition bill.

After reviewing the cargo manifest to Allegheny, Delta, AA, and other airlines, I decided to take a full load to Delta and then make two more trips to American. After completing Delta at approximately 0130h, I started to look for a large shipment of caviar, worth over half a million dollars going to American.

As I was searching for the caviar, a cargo agent I had just seen at Delta surprised me on the deserted dock. How did he get in? All the doors were closed tightly to keep out the cold and whipping wind coming from Jamaica Bay. Normally, the truckers rang the outside doorbell to get in. Not giving it much thought, I paged a cargo agent to unload his truck.

As I was leaving the area, I saw the double doors of the center tower propped open with a wooden board. When the doors are properly closed, it is impossible to enter the warehouse from the tower. The doors worked just like an emergency exit, preventing entry into the warehouse but allowing exit. That’s how the Delta guy got in.

I found the 8183 pounds of caviar going to San Juan, with the help of Rolf Rebmann, the graveyard shift leader. The cargo was loaded in two LD-3 containers and one heavy aircraft pallet with dimensions of ten, by eight, by five feet high.

We always used truck eleven for aircraft pallets because they would easily roll on and off the open flatbed. Unfortunately, the bitter cold and wind would freeze my caviar, so I used the enclosed box truck to avoid a huge insurance claim.

The loading was done on the deserted ramp, with the aid of a forklift, between 0200h and 0230h. I had the uncanny feeling someone was watching, but didn’t worry about it. There was always the presence of the airport menagerie: wild dogs, rats, raccoons, and skunks looking for their next meal. Maybe the expensive fishy aroma of the caviar had brought an audience to my deserted end of the airport.

I arrived at American at 0240h on December 11 and found the huge cargo building deserted. The coffee truck pulled up at 0250h and a few employees came out of the woodwork. To stay warm and alert, I purchased a hot cup of crankcase coffee with the loose coins in my pocket.

I asked one of the American employees Is anybody working the export dock? He replied, Everyone is on lunch break. It wasn’t his job, but he came to my truck and accepted the pallet. It was now 0310h and the cargo was safely in their warehouse. This kind act got me out of American at least thirty minutes earlier than expected.

I was on the road at 0320h and drove past Pan Am, KLM, Air France, and then made the left turn towards Seaboard World Airlines on the eerily deserted roads. The only trouble in my mirrors that night was old man winter.

After driving thru guard post letter I, I continued ramp side in the pitch darkness, parallel to runway 13L and across the taxiway to Lufthansa Cargo Building 261. At 0330h, approximately 100 yards from the building, I noticed two men sitting in a dark colored van that was backed up to the building’s closed vehicle entrance.

My high-beam headlights went into the van as I made a U-turn in front of them. That was the moment when I got my best look at the passenger. He was about 28 to 30 years old, 5’10 and average build. The driver was about twenty-two years old, dark hair, dark complexion, approximately 5’6 and of average build. Both were Caucasian.

I parked approximately fifty feet in front of their vehicle, looked into my rearview mirrors and only saw the building in the darkness. I searched for any sort of weapon in the glove box, but found nothing. Luckily, I forgot about the Swiss Army knife in my pocket. I rolled up the transfer paperwork tightly and put it into my coat pocket.

I was fatigued and jumpy from the long hours and finally decided to get out of the truck. As soon as I stepped onto the ramp, the van came into view again. I became even more suspicious because they were ignoring me. The van didn’t have any airline signage or Port Authority plates and it was too damn clean for anything that knocked around on the windswept airport. Maybe they were stealing the constantly disappearing Moroccan carpets that flew out of our building on a regular basis.

I didn’t look at them as I approached on the van’s passenger side and acted as if I wasn’t apprehensive about their presence. I was hoping one of them would get out and tell me they were making a delivery. About 25 feet away, I caught a glimpse of the passenger’s right side profile as he looked toward the driver. A few steps later, I was at the van’s passenger door and they were still ignoring me.

I might have glanced at the passenger again. A second after passing the van door, it opened. I was looking and walking straight at the building’s entry door thirty feet away. The passenger mumbled something; I spun around and caught a glimpse of a body getting out. Later on, I realized what he said, Get in the truck.

I ran for the entrance and screamed at the top of my lungs, HELP. I stopped and grabbed for the first door, flung it open and entered. I was in the building and just five feet away from the second entry door. As I reached to pull it open, the passenger started to pistol-whip me, and a second later, the driver made it a late night daily double. I managed to scream at the top of my lungs again, HELP and collapsed; face down, to the concrete floor. I was thinking it was my normal shift and expected at least a few workers to respond to my screams and kick the shit out of my assailants.

The men quickly turned me on my right side and then onto my back. The driver grabbed the glasses off my face and shoved a pistol deep into my left eye socket. I could not see with my left eye, but my right eye saw two bullets staring at me, the size of submarine torpedoes, in the chamber of a pistol. I was so sure I would die that my body went completely limp causing me to urinate into my longjohns. The lower portions of their bodies and a larger pistol held by the passenger came into view. The passenger was crouched on my right and the driver was now on top of my chest.

If you scream again, we’ll kill you, said the driver.

Okay, Okay, I give up.

Does he have a gun?