Events on January 17 in history

The Great Brink's Robbery: Eleven thieves steal more than $2 million from an armored car company's offices in Boston.

The Great Brink's Robbery was an armed robbery of the Brink's Building at the east corner of Prince St. and Commercial St. in the North End of Boston, Massachusetts, on January 17, 1950. Today the building is a parking garage located at 600 Commercial Street.The $2.775 million ($29.9 million today) theft consisted of $1,218,211.29 in cash and $1,557,183.83 in checks, money orders, and other securities. It was then the largest robbery in the history of the United States, and remained so until 1984. The robbery, skillfully executed with few clues left at the crime scene, was billed as "the crime of the century". It was the work of an eleven-member gang, ten of whom were later arrested.