Dunbar Armored robbery

On September 12, 1997, six men robbed the Dunbar Armored facility on Mateo St. in Downtown Los Angeles, California of US$18.9 million (equivalent to $ million in ). The robbery was orchestrated by Allen Pace III, of Compton, with childhood friends Erik Damon Boyd, of Buena Park; Eugene Lamar Hill Jr., of Bellflower; Freddie Lynn McCrary Jr., of Arleta; Terry Wayne Brown Sr., of Los Angeles; and Thomas Lee Johnson, of Las Vegas, Nevada. It is the largest cash robbery to have occurred in the United States. While the group left almost no evidence, Hill was implicated two years later when he accidentally gave a real estate broker a stack of banknotes that were still secured in their original currency straps; the broker contacted the police. Hill confessed, implicating the five other robbers, and three other men who had assisted in laundering the money. Pace was sentenced to 24 years in prison in 2001; Boyd was sentenced to 17 years, and the other four robbers received sentences ranging from 8 to 10 years. Two of the men who assisted in money laundering were sentenced to 2.5 years. Robbery The robbery was masterminded by Allen Pace III, who worked for Dunbar as a regional safety inspector. While on the job, Pace had time to photograph and examine the company's Los Angeles armored car depot. He recruited five of his childhood friends, providing them with detailed floor plans & camera locations, ski masks, pistols, a shotgun, and radio headsets. The day before the robbery, Pace was fired by Dunbar for tampering with company vehicles. On the night of Friday, September 12, 1997, the group of six assembled at a house party – to establish an alibi – before leaving, where Pace used his keys to gain admittance to the facility. Pace had timed the security cameras and determined how they could be avoided. Once inside, they waited within the staff cafeteria, ambushing the guards one by one as they took their lunch breaks at approximately 12:30 am. Pace knew that on Friday nights, the vault was left open due to the large quantities of money being moved. Rushing the two vault guards, the robbers managed to subdue all employees with duct tape before they could signal any alarms and did not fire a shot. In 30 minutes, the robbers had loaded $18.9 million into a waiting U-Haul truck. Pace knew exactly which bags contained the highest denominations and non-sequential bills. He also knew where the recording devices for the security cameras were located and took them.