September 13th, 1997. At this time of night downtown Los Angeles is quiet, a far cry from
the bustling city center it is during the day. It’s a typical night shift at the Dunbar Armored
facility. Little do the guards know that they are soon to become victims in one of the largest
and most audacious robberies in US history. Thirty year old Alan Pace III is the regional
safety inspector for Dunbar Armored, Inc. He seems diligent in his duties and his co-workers
like him. He’s known for playing pranks. What no one knows is that Allan is a criminal mastermind
who has big plans. Number one on his list is to rob the downtown LA Dunbar Armored facility,
a depot where armored trucks drop off and pick up cash amassed from businesses all over the city.
Allan turns to his trusted childhood friends Eugene Hill, Erik Boyd, Freddie McCrary Jr.,
Terry Brown Sr and Thomas Johnson for help. Allan studies the security measures of the
facility. He learns the schedules of everyone on the night shift. He even takes pictures of
the interior rooms and hallways of the depot. Other employees assume that the picture taking
must be part of Allan’s job since he oversees worker safety for the company.
In fact, part of his job includes making sure fire extinguishers are up to date and that
hallways aren’t blocked. As part of his scheme, Allan also checks the security cameras for blind
spots and inspects the rotating cameras to see how long they stay on a specific field of view.
For several months Allan and his five friends meet regularly and plan the robbery.
Due to his extensive research, Allan is able to provide them with maps,
images and detailed information.They even go on reconnaissance field trips, driving
past the building and getting very familiar with the area. They vow that if any one of them gets
caught, they won’t snitch on the others. On Thursday Sept 12th Allan is notified
that he’s going to be fired from Dunbar Amored for tampering with company property.
As part of a prank he had removed the headlight from one of the armored trucks.
It was now or never. The next day Allan would have to turn in his keys and lose access to
the facility. Furthermore, the wee hours of Friday morning are the perfect time to strike.
From experience, Allan knows the vault will be packed with money waiting to be distributed across
the city in anticipation of weekend shopping. On Thursday night the crew of robbers hangs out
at a party in Long Beach for a couple of hours to establish alibis. They then slip away and
change into black clothes and masks. They also don radio headsets for talking to each other
and check their guns before driving about 25 miles (40 km) to downtown Los Angeles.
At this time of night, there’s little traffic and the journey takes less than half an hour.
It’s several minutes after midnight when the thieves arrive at the downtown Dunbar facility.
They’re able to drive their rented U-Haul truck into the parking lot without issue,
during planning Allan had learned that the guard watching the camera for the parking lot
had a new truck and kept the camera trained on his truck so he could view it.
To get inside, Allan simply unlocks a side door and the robbers go right on in. Their
first task is to evade detection on the various security cameras lining the hallways. Due to
Allan’s meticulous planning, they hug the walls and move during timed intervals to make their
way past rotating cameras without being seen. The bandits head for the cafeteria where they
quickly take the hospitality staff hostage. At 12:30 am most of the guards go on lunch
break. As each guard arrives at the cafeteria, the robbers ambush and take them hostage one by one,
preventing them from sounding the alarm or alerting other guards.
All the captured guards are laid face down and their arms and ankles are bound with duct tape.
The robbers also take the key for the vault prep room from one of the hostage guards.
This room has cameras that can’t be avoided, so the robbers just rush the two armed
guards inside and take them hostage too. Now the robbers need to get into the vault,
which has 18 inch (46 cm) steel doors. However, due to the volume of money being
moved through the facility on a Friday night, the vault has been left open for ease of use.
The robbers go into the vault and using bolt cutters snap the ordinary padlocks on the
metal cages storing the bags of cash. Money in the vault is sorted by delivery routes
and Allan has memorized which routes use large denomination bills. He has his crew avoid bags
of new cash with sequential serial numbers. They mainly grab sacks filled with stacks of
$20 bills that had been destined for automated teller machines around the city. The robbers
quickly load the bags of cash onto metal carts which they wheel to the loading dock. They back
their truck up to the dock and load up. In about 30 minutes, they move $18.9 million in cash.
Allan has two final tasks before they split. He steals the security tapes from the recording
system in the security control room and then races to a locked closet elsewhere in the facility to
steal the secret backup security tapes out of recording equipment which is in a locked cabinet.
The robbers also smash cameras on the way out. Without a single gunshot being fired,
Allan Pace and his crew have pulled off the largest cash heist in American history.
The robbers go to an apartment that belongs to one of them and change back into their
party clothes. They return to the house party in Long Beach and play it cool.
At this point most thieves would be impatient and dumb; they’d flash their money around and
go on spending sprees. However, these robbers are smarter than most. Allan gives each member
of the crew $100,000 to be used for quiet, discreet spending. Per the agreed upon plan,
the rest of the cash will have to wait until the heat’s off. The robbers pack the remaining $18.2
million in garbage bags and move them into a self storage facility for safe keeping.
A task force involving local police, FBI and other federal authorities quickly forms to
investigate the heist. The Dunbar company and their insurer, Lloyd’s of London,
offer a $125,000 reward for information leading to the robbers’ arrest and conviction.
However, authorities are soon stumped. There are no fingerprints. There are no
names--when talking during the robbery, the thieves had called each other by number.
There is no video evidence of the crime either. The one thing investigators are certain of is
that it’s an inside job. Someone with intimate knowledge of the operations of the Dunbar Armored
facility has to be involved--especially since the robbers knew that the backup
security tapes existed and stole those too. Authorities interview employees of the facility,
hoping that someone knows something. One of the questions asked during these meetings is
‘which employee do you think could have committed this crime?’ Interestingly,
the name of Allan Pace keeps coming up. The only major clue the authorities have is
a small plastic tail light lens that was found at Dunbar's loading dock, it doesn’t belong to
any company vehicle. The FBI forensics lab in Washington analyzes it and determines that it’s
from a 14-foot (4.27 meter) U-Haul truck. But this promising lead is a flop. There are many
U-Haul trucks on rent in greater LA at the time of the robbery. The only name they have is Allan’s.
They check to see if he rented a truck during the time of the robbery, of course he hasn’t.
Investigators conduct surveillance on Allan. They even delve into his financial records. However
they discover nothing. Allan is living quietly at his mom’s home. He hasn’t made any flashy
purchases. He stays away from the self storage center where the money is hidden. As it turns out,
Allan doesn’t even have a bank account. The trail goes cold.
Over 6 months pass. Allan cautiously begins to parcel out money to his crew.
He plans to invest his share in rental properties, retire and just live off his
investments. The robbers slowly begin purchasing cars and property in cash. They use straw buyers
to acquire at least 10 homes during public auctions of foreclosed properties. They allow
family to live in these homes or rent them out. The robbers realize that they accidentally stole
several bags of new money with sequential serial numbers which could link them to the crime. Allan
tells them that this money needs to be destroyed. Some of the robbers go to one of their homes that
has a fireplace and try to get rid of it by burning it. But, US money is manufactured to be
somewhat anti flammable and the stacks of money burn slowly. The task quickly became tedious.
The robbers decide to go to Las Vegas instead and play the slot machines to
get rid of the new money. Unfortunately, crisp, new money jams in the slot machines.
So the robbers end up putting the money through a washing machine to make them usable.
More time passes. Allan sets up a company ‘Extreme Entertainment’ which rents party supplies,
but it’s mainly a front to launder the stolen money. He puts his accomplices on the payroll
and pays himself and them very high salaries. About two years after the robbery, one of the
robbers, Eugene Hill, makes a fatal mistake. He hires a real estate broker to purchase a
property and gives the man a stack of cash that is still wrapped in the original cash straps.
The broker is suspicious and alerts police. Authorities investigate and realize that based
on the dates and handwriting on the straps, the cash is part of the stash stolen from
the Dunbar facility. The authorities dig into Eugene’s financial records and also subpoena
thousands of U-haul records. They learned that Eugene rented a 14 foot U-haul a day before the
robbery and had returned it a day later. When police arrest Eugene, they find in
his possession more cash in the original money wrappers. Eugene quickly confesses, and rolls on
his accomplices in return for a lesser sentence. Allan and the five other robbers are arrested
and put on trial in the spring of 2001. To the end, Allan denied taking part in the robbery,
he claimed that he was being set up by his former friends as
revenge for cheating with a friend's wife. Four of the robbers in Allans’s crew plead
guilty and are sentenced to federal prison for terms ranging from 7 1/2 to 10 years.
The fifth robber receives 17 ½ years. Allan, the criminal mastermind is sentenced to 24
years. Also, the robbers are ordered to pay $18.9 million in restitution.
Authorities have accounted for about $7 million taken in the heist. Most of that
was spent on homes, cars, and other items. It’s estimated that several hundred thousand dollars
were burned or gambled away in Las Vegas. Many authorities say that there is as much
as $10m is still hidden somewhere. As of fall 2020, this money has not been
found. Allan Pace will soon complete his prison sentence. Once he gets out, could he secretly
retrieve the missing stolen cash, change his identity and retire on a beach somewhere?
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