The Commercial Union Assurance Company, which insures Brink’s,Īdded $100,000 for the recovery of the money. Brink’s posted a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the thieves. “We’re swimming against the current.”Īn hour after the hijacking. “So far everything we check into turns up negative,” said Detective-Lieutenant Jean-Louis He'lie of the department’s Criminal Investigation Bureau. The 54-pound machine gun seemed to be untraceable. Within hours, the members of the Montreal holdup squad were aware that they had almost nothing to go on.
There was no violence, no shooting, and the operation was carried off with military precision. In a city known for its shooting-spree bank robbers, the Brink’s holdup stood out for its professional panache. It was the largest cash robbery in North American history. Some 24 minutes later, Lachapelle was handcuffed to his driver’s seat and five men had disappeared with $2.8 million in small bills and Olympic coins. When the stocky, bearded truck driver told him, “Don’t be a dummy, open the door,” Lachapelle didn’t hesitate. The gun, a 50-caliber Browning antiaircraft gun with armor-piercing bullets, was mounted on a tripod in the rear of a small van stopped in front of the Brink’s truck. Now, parked in an alley in the heart of Montreal’s financial district, he remembered what kind of damage the machine gun he was staring at could do. Gilles Lachapelle, a driver for Brink’s armored-car service, had served in the Korean War.
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