Original subtitles

An unassuming building in downtown Los Angeles

filled with cash.

There's millions and millions of dollars in this facility.

Six friends decide they want what's inside.

They had everything planned to the T.

Can these amateur thieves become a professional crew

and hit the jackpot?

And now, let's go, let's go.

It's on.

Or will the score of a lifetime get them all killed?

This is most definitely not part of the plan.

[dramatic music]

[jazzy music]

The masterminds behind every great heist

see what most people don't...

♪ ♪

risking everything to pull off the score of a lifetime.

It takes a bold plan...

♪ ♪

The right team,

and the skill to stay one step ahead of the law.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

The group of friends attempting this robbery

has never been in trouble with the law before.

But tonight, they're risking everything

on one amateur mastermind's bold plan to steal millions.

At the time, LA is known as the bank robbery capital

of the world, but their target isn't a bank.

It's the place that supplies banks with their cash.

♪ ♪

The Dunbar Armored facility actually houses

on any given day well over $100 million,

as does all of their competitors,

Brinks, or any of the other

local armored transport companies.

Dunbar Armored depot has a lot less security than a bank,

but does have a lot more cash.

But the average stickup guy can't just

go in and rob the joint.

♪ ♪

The South Mateo Street location

was a one-level building.

It was very similar to a warehouse,

and it was very indiscreet,

other than the trucks pulling in and out of the facility.

On the outside, it's a very drab, beige color

that wouldn't attract attention.

But on the inside, it's a 26,000 square foot facility

with lots of different offices

and lots of different security features.

As you enter, there is a very elite alarm system,

in addition to all of the surveillance cameras,

which were well in excess of 20, 25 cameras.

The main security station is located in the lunchroom area.

There are monitors that show the CCTV footage

from all angles of the facility.

Security guards watch the monitors 24 hours a day.

Armed drivers wearing bulletproof vests

come and go at all hours.

There are bullet-resistant doors

in front of the vault prep area.

The vault prep area is a secure room

outside the vault door where every dollar is counted

and wrapped with a Dunbar band.

The door to that room is locked 24/7.

And of course, you have an 18-inch impregnable vault.

There's enough surveillance, firepower, and security

to deter most ordinary criminals.

But 28-year-old Allen Pace isn't a criminal at all.

He's just an employee

who's surrounded by millions in cash

and sees cracks in Dunbar's armor.

♪ ♪

Allen Pace is the mastermind of the heist.

Allen Pace is just a run-of-the-mill guy,

somebody you might even lose in the crowd if you saw him.

He's just a regular dude,

not involved in any criminality

prior to this incident.

Some people viewed him as a prankster.

Some people thought he was a little cocky.

♪ ♪

As a security guard,

Allen Pace knows how to use a gun.

He knows how to use radio headsets

to communicate with other guards.

And more importantly, he knows how to work under pressure.

♪ ♪

Allen Pace is responsible for inspecting

and maintaining the trucks,

so he works at the Dunbar storage facility full-time,

and obviously observes the routines.

You get used to doing the same thing the same way

all the time, and when people are watching

and they pay attention, this is that kind of

internal knowledge that's very helpful.

I think it's only normal that any average person would

start looking at all that money and fantasize

about what it might be like to take it.

And maybe fantasy leads

to taking a more critical look around the facility,

thinking, well, if I was going to, how would I do it?

Having a background in security is a great way

to learn how to commit a bank robbery, right?

Pace also learns some key facts

about how he might steal the Dunbar millions

from the girl who stole his heart,

Tamiko Carnes.

♪ ♪

Tamiko Carnes is Allen Pace's girlfriend.

She works at the Dunbar facility as well,

and her job is to manage video security equipment.

Tamiko's role at Dunbar is incredibly beneficial

for Allen Pace.

She knows lots of the security measures.

And you can well imagine that at home,

there's a lot of pillow talk about what goes on.

Pace sees how a small crew with the right game plan

could actually pull off a heist at Dunbar.

Then, without warning, his inside woman is out.

She's fired under suspicion of theft

because there were some money bags that were placed

in a surveillance dead zone.

And that, along with other circumstantial evidence,

is enough for the senior executives to fire her.

♪ ♪

And when that happens,

Pace's relationship with Dunbar turns adversarial.

And within a fairly short space of time,

one of Allen's friends gets fired,

and his girlfriend gets fired,

and there's maybe starting to build some animosity

between Allen and upper management.

Pace decides to make his fantasy a reality.

But if he's going to attempt the heist of his life,

he'll need guys he trusts with his life.

♪ ♪

He needs the right crew.

♪ ♪

His first choice,

best friend, Eugene Hill.

Eugene Hill is a good friend of Pace's.

He's actually the first guy that he brings on board.

They've known each other for a long, long time,

and they actually have worked together as security officers

at a variety of different venues.

Eugene Hill also has no criminal background.

For Pace to pull this off, he'll need a bigger team.

Allen Pace has a challenge,

because if he approaches the wrong person,

the whole plan could be foiled.

He has to recruit guys that are open

to pushing the boundaries.

And really, it takes a lot of guts

in order to do something like that.

But this isn't the kind of job

you post in the classifieds.

He meets with a couple of friends in the parking lot

after church and sketches out his plan in chalk.

I mean, to be able to get individuals

that have never committed crimes like this,

you really have to be a pretty dynamic person.

These guys, they really need to be convinced

that this is something that they should do,

which speaks to how much they trust Pace.

Trust is good,

but Pace knows his can't-miss plan will seal the deal.

He shows his friends how the cold, hard facts

lead to cold, hard cash.

Pace sketches out a rough layout of the facility.

He maps out each of their movements

and each step that they have to take

to dodge the security cameras.

It's definitely a plan in progress,

but Pace's confidence is contagious.

Two more of his friends agree to risk everything

for a colossal score.

♪ ♪

Freddie McCrary Jr. is one of the guys

that are brought in early on.

He works as a security guard at a church.

And him and Pace are really good friends.

They actually knew each other since they were ten years old,

and he's a bit of a teddy bear.

They've done security at churches,

at nightclubs as bouncers.

And having grown up together, I would imagine

that there's more of a brotherhood-type bond

between the two of them.

Freddie McCrary Jr. is someone that Allen trusted

probably with his life.

The next person is Terry Brown.

♪ ♪

He met Terry Brown through one of his jobs working security.

As a matter of fact, Pace started a security company

with Brown and McCrary.

♪ ♪

Pace now has a trusted crew of three,

but to keep his plan moving forward,

he needs to case the Dunbar facility.

And that means taking pictures and risks.

This is really where the rubber meets the road

in this plan, because he is then able to do things

like take pictures of employees under the guise of safety.

What he's really doing is creating dossiers

on the Dunbar employees his crew could

encounter during the heist.

He's also taking pictures of the CCTV cameras

they'll have to avoid.

He is able to check on surveillance cameras

and where they are recording and what they're recording.

Of course, there's always the chance

someone will ask him what the heck he's doing.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

Allen Pace is using his day job

at Dunbar Armored depot as a cover to plan a heist.

And he's just attracted some unwanted attention.

Allen Pace, as a safety manager,

is able to go around and take photos.

♪ ♪

And even if he does get caught doing it,

no one really suspects anything fishy is going on.

He is able to use his position

in order to further his criminal enterprise.

♪ ♪

Allen Pace now has procured photos.

He has more details on the facility.

And he calls in a second meeting.

♪ ♪

So Allen envisions the caper going down like this.

♪ ♪

Pace and his crew travel to the Dunbar facility

in two vehicles.

Some of them ride in the truck

that they're gonna use to store the money,

some of them ride in a personal vehicle.

They'll take the freeway,

stash the second car a few blocks from Dunbar,

then all ride in the rental truck to the depot,

letting themselves in with Allen's key.

They'll go in on a Friday night

when there's the most amount of cash in the vault

and security is the lightest.

The door actually to the vault is also left open

on Friday because they were dealing with so much money.

They were counting so much money,

and then they were gonna have to put this in the vault.

So to save a step, they leave the vault door open.

Pace will instruct the team on which cash is safe to take

and which should be left behind.

What they definitely don't want

are the freshly-minted bills

that are in sequential order and very traceable.

They'll avoid all the security cameras.

He knows all the positions.

There's a single security guard on duty.

They'll time it so that they go in

when he's on his lunch break.

The only people that they really need

to concern themselves with, in terms of corralling

and controlling, are the three or four people

that he's expecting to be in the facility

along with the night security guard.

Then they need to get into the vault prep area

fast enough to grab the dispatcher

before he can hit the panic button.

They'll subdue all the employees in the building,

grab the money, throw it into a truck,

and be in and out before anyone knows what's happened.

To avoid suspicion,

Pace won't participate in the heist himself.

He's relying on his friends to get this job done.

He's going to give them all the information they need.

He's going to plan out the whole thing for them.

He's going to coach them up, make sure they know

exactly what they need to do,

but he's not going to participate in the robbery.

He's going to stay a Dunbar employee

and wake up the next day with no one being the wiser.

Pace refines his plan

and knows his crew will need help controlling the guards.

And that's where Thomas Johnson comes in.

Thomas Johnson is originally from Las Vegas.

He's also friends with some of the guys.

He's done security as well.

These guys are like birds of a feather.

They all flock together.

They have the commonality of, we do security.

♪ ♪

As the meetings progress, there's more and more details.

He's got information on the security system.

He's got pictures of the employees

with their names and what they will be doing.

Pace instructs his men to wear dark clothing.

They're going to wear masks.

They're going to put gloves over their hands.

They're going to try to hide their identities

as best as humanly possible.

They also talk about things

that only an insider would know--

the timing of the cameras that are on a rotating schedule

as they enter the facility.

25 cameras are in fixed positions,

so their feed rotates through the handful

of monitors at the guard station.

The crew needs to avoid being caught on camera

and has some inside intel.

Tamiko's position at Dunbar was the video manager

over the equipment, which means that she, too,

has intimate internal institutional knowledge

about how they conduct surveillance

over their employees once inside the building,

If this team of amateurs has any hope

of beating the surveillance cameras,

Pace needs to start training them like pros.

Allen Pace wants to prepare his team for the robbery.

They've never done anything like this before.

♪ ♪

So they would have to have done a little practice.

You play like you practice.

And as a security guard, you want to make sure

that you run through the drill of,

when we go in, this is how we're gonna move,

this is how we're gonna walk,

this is who's gonna go in first,

this is the order.

Everything has to be planned.

You can't just go in willy-nilly.

Pace is determined that nobody get hurt in the heist,

but with armed guards in the building,

they can't go in empty-handed.

Freddie McCrary supplies the handguns,

but all the guys are familiar with this

because of their job as security.

♪ ♪

While they brought guns just in case

or to use as an intimidation factor,

he understands that these people would go along

if they saw armed men.

I don't think he wanted to hurt them.

This wasn't about them. This was about Dunbar.

♪ ♪

Allen Pace is feeling very good about his plan.

A few more weeks to get the guys in shape,

shave a few seconds off their entry,

and they'll be ready to pull off the heist

in late September.

And then... [cell phone ringing]

This happens.

♪ ♪

[cell phone ringing]

The pieces are in place. The team is set.

Pace gets a call from upper management.

He's fired.

♪ ♪

Allen Pace is confident that his friends can pull off

a multi-million dollar heist at Dunbar Armored.

His plan hinges on them using his key to sneak in.

But then... [cell phone ringing]

He gets a game-changing phone call.

Allen Pace was terminated from his position

with Dunbar Armored on Friday, September the 12th.

The practical joker is accused

of tampering with company vehicles.

But losing his job at this stage is no laughing matter.

He has to turn in his keys, and what that does

is that accelerates the plan a little bit.

When Pace gets the call that he's being fired,

he realizes that he actually has

to go on the robbery himself.

If he sends these guys in there unprepared,

so many things could go wrong,

so he knows he's going to have to go with them,

lead the charge, and help conduct the robbery himself.

He had to kick it into high gear.

They were going to have to do this robbery immediately.

♪ ♪

Pace calls his right-hand man, Eugene Hill,

and tells him, rent the U-Haul.

♪ ♪

He tells the others, it's go time.

So Allen Pace knows that as a recently terminated employee,

he's going to be a prime suspect.

He knows that he's going to need an alibi.

And Eugene Hill tells him that his girlfriend is actually

throwing a house party in Long Beach,

and if they attended, that's their solid alibi.

People at this party, no matter who you ask,

are going to be able to vouch for all of these guys.

So their alibi is going to be very strong.

Before the party, they meet at Hill's apartment.

♪ ♪

Pushing up the timeline has Pace worried.

Even with him leading the way,

one man stays with the truck,

one watches the guard,

they could potentially be outnumbered

in the vault prep room.

Pace realizes he needs another guy.

And that's when he engages Erik Boyd.

♪ ♪

Erik is a little bit different.

He's the brother-in-law of Allen Pace.

While he's done a little bit of security,

he's not really well-known by the others.

Maybe this was an opportunity for Allen

to bring in a family member, his sister's husband,

and give her the homie hookup as well.

♪ ♪

Since he hasn't been

training like the rest of them,

Boyd will man the U-Haul until they secure the building.

♪ ♪

The final meeting that took place,

each of the individuals discussed

what their responsibilities were going to be

during the course of the robbery.

Terry Brown supplies the radio headsets.

The plan also includes a safety measure.

The guys don't want to refer to each other by names

during the robbery to give away their identities,

so when they speak to each other on the radios,

they say, "one to two" or "two to three,"

and Allen Pace is number one.

♪ ♪

One of the things that everybody agrees to

as they get ready to embark on this endeavor

is if anybody gets caught, you don't talk.

And whoever is left on the outside will take care

of whoever is incarcerated financially,

make sure that their family is OK.

They're going in blind to try to pull off this robbery,

so they must have had an incredible amount

of trust in Allen.

And they must have really wanted the money

to be able to go through with it.

♪ ♪

That evening, they go to a party in Long Beach.

[upbeat music]

♪ ♪

When it gets close to about 11:00 p.m.,

they slip away from the party one by one, unnoticed.

Two of them get into Hill's sedan,

and the other four get into the rented U-Haul truck.

It's a brilliant plan,

because when they're done with the heist,

come back, and it's like they never left.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

[engine turns over]

♪ ♪

As they drive to the facility,

the adrenaline is rushing.

This is the biggest thing they've ever even attempted

to pull off, and now they're minutes away from doing it.

♪ ♪

They avoid their first potential

roadblock of the night.

Traffic is light on LA's 710 freeway.

♪ ♪

The Dunbar depot is located in downtown Los Angeles.

And it's a pretty desolate area.

There's no stores.

There's no homes, no restaurants.

So anyone who's wandering around there

without any particular reason is looking pretty suspicious.

♪ ♪

They drive to the Dunbar facility.

The guys that are in the back of the U-Haul,

once they get situated nearby,

they park and they change into their costume, if you will,

gloves, mask, black clothing.

[gun cocks]

♪ ♪

They have one last moment

that is their point of no return.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

These five ordinary guys are risking their lives

on the only heist their friend, Allen Pace, has ever planned.

And right out of the gate, they get a lucky break.

Pace recognizes the night dispatcher's

pickup truck parked outside.

He knew that that particular truck belonged

to one of the employees inside the facility,

and he knew that one of the surveillance cameras

was positioned directly at that truck and would not move.

The dispatcher's soft spot for his new truck

creates a surveillance blind spot at the front door.

On a signal from Pace, the heist is on.

♪ ♪

So they move up to the facility commando-style.

The guys are dressed all in black.

They've got two-way radios. They've got their guns.

They use Pace's key to get in the front door.

♪ ♪

We suspected that Pace either kept a key

or duplicated some of his keys

prior to surrendering them at the time he was terminated.

♪ ♪

Now in order to make it from the door

that they've entered all the way to the lunchroom,

they have to dodge a series of surveillance cameras.

And what they've done is they've timed

when this camera's looking this way,

they will sneak over here.

At this point, this is when the hand signals

and the non-communication comes in,

because they don't want anybody to know

that they're in the facility.

So it's a slow move down this corridor

to the lunchroom, where they ultimately make it

without being spotted on the surveillance cameras.

They make it to the lunchroom undetected,

but their plan depends on the armored guard appearing

where Pace expects him to be at exactly the right time.

Who do they see?

Mr. 12:00 midnight I got to take my lunch break guy.

They see him, and the first thing they do

is gaffle him up, tie him up with duct tape.

He's got a .357 revolver.

They take that away from him,

as well as the keys to the vault area.

♪ ♪

Pace checks the security monitors

to verify there are only three people in the vault prep room.

Now that they have the guard's keys,

taking control of that room should be no problem.

Even though there's a lot of planning

that goes into a heist like this,

there are still the unknowns.

There's always going to be a variable

that you can't account for.

♪ ♪

When they come out of the lunchroom,

they see a driver guard walking down the hallway.

♪ ♪

This is most definitely not part of the plan.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

Eight minutes into the Dunbar Armored depot heist

and all is going as planned

for Allen Pace and his crew--

until now.

As they're making a turn out of the lunchroom,

they see another guard coming out.

The guy's wearing body armor.

He's walking right toward them.

This is a really tense moment.

This guy was not supposed to be there.

Pace knows the timing, he knows the routines of everything.

He knows that the guards who drive the armored cars

should have already been in and out.

♪ ♪

Luckily for the robbers,

the driver guard doesn't have his weapon.

He's already secured it elsewhere.

They immediately push him down on the floor,

and they duct tape him as well.

Once Pace and the other individuals have

the actual employees bound,

one of the robbers stands guard,

and the remaining robbers then make their way

into the vault prep area.

Pace peeks through the bulletproof glass

to confirm there are no surprise Dunbar employees.

Then it's time to see if practice makes perfect.

♪ ♪

Pace and his guys storm into the vault prep area

using the keys they took from the security guard.

♪ ♪

Now their next challenge

is to subdue three Dunbar employees.

They see one dispatcher sitting behind the desk

and two bookkeepers that are counting money.

They're able to apprehend the dispatcher

before he's able to hit the alarm button.

As Pace and his guys are subduing the employees

in the vault prep area, they shove them down to the ground.

They're screaming and yelling,

asking who else is in the building,

making sure they've accounted for everyone.

One of the women gets pushed down to the ground so hard

that she cries out in pain.

One of them actually injures her shoulder,

and Pace, in effort to comfort her,

says, "Don't worry, baby, everything's going to be OK."

With the money counters all accounted for,

it's time to get down to business.

♪ ♪

They immediately get on the radio and notify the driver,

Erik Boyd-- he's out in the U-Haul--

to back it up into the loading area

so that they can begin to load the bags of cash

into the U-Haul.

But while backing the truck up to the loading dock,

Boyd accidentally cracks a taillight.

Team focused on the cash, no one notices.

♪ ♪

Allen knew that on this Friday night,

they were going to be bursting at the seams with cash.

And these funds were going to be dispersed over the weekend

to various ATMs throughout Los Angeles.

Allen begins instructing all of the other robbers

on which bags to get and which bags not to get.

♪ ♪

There are certain bags of cash

that they don't want to touch.

He has that internal institutional knowledge.

And much like when you go to the bank,

if you're committing robberies,

you don't want to take the dye pack.

They take the cash in the plastic shrink wrap

and then they put them into garbage bags.

And from the garbage bags, they put them in the bins.

And then they wheel the bins to the U-Haul truck.

And now, let's go, let's go.

[laughs] It's on.

♪ ♪

We've got to get as much money as we can

as quickly as we can.

♪ ♪

The team's moving fast, but Pace stays in control.

There's a bin full of cash in the back,

enough to triple their take,

but since Pace doesn't know if the currency is marked,

he leaves it behind.

In this particular bin,

there was somewhere between $65 million and $70 million

all in $20 bill denominations.

♪ ♪

30 minutes into the heist,

the truck is stuffed with cash.

The crew can't leave behind incriminating footage,

so they take the VCR

and recordings from the guard room.

There's another hidden security measure

to contend with, but Pace's girlfriend, Tamiko,

has told them how to deal with that.

She shares with Allen that there is an office

within the facility where there's a secret

backup recording that goes on internally

that no one else would probably know.

You have to remember this is 1997.

All the robbers had to do was rip the security systems

out of the wall, take the recording equipment with them,

and there would be no visual evidence of the crime.

♪ ♪

Now that they've got all of the tapes

that they can get their hands on,

they need to make it look like a real burglary.

So they go about vandalizing the interior of the office.

They break a lock on one of the front doors.

Now they're ready to make their big escape.

♪ ♪

They've taken so much money

that two of the crew members can't fit in this U-Haul.

♪ ♪

No one expected that they would fill

the back of that U-Haul chest-high with bags of money.

The plan was to drop Pace and Hill off

at their getaway car.

But thanks to the success of the heist,

the U-Haul truck is too full.

Now the best friends have to find their own way out.

So now how do we get back to the getaway car?

They can't walk.

It's after midnight.

You understand the problem associated

with two Black men walking on the streets

of downtown LA after midnight.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

The Dunbar heist team has loaded so much cash

into their rental truck that Allen Pace

and Eugene Hill no longer have a ride

to their getaway car a few blocks away.

They didn't want to run the risk of being seen

walking the streets of Los Angeles after midnight,

two Black men wearing all black,

ski masks, and gloves.

But they have to make it back to the getaway car fast.

♪ ♪

In that moment, Pace exhibits a moment

of really quick thinking.

Allen knows the dispatcher parks his pickup truck

in the same place every night.

Pace runs back into the facility,

grabs the guy's car keys,

rushes back out.

And Pace and Eugene Hill get in that pickup truck

and go back to Eugene Hill's car,

which is parked on the street a couple blocks away.

♪ ♪

All six men make a clean getaway from the Dunbar depot.

They rendezvous at Hill's apartment

to stash the guns and gear,

then change back into their party clothes.

Just 90 minutes after leaving the party,

they're ready to return

and lock in their rock-solid alibis.

And when they get to the party,

they park the U-Haul truck in front of the house.

And they go right in.

And it was as if they never left.

♪ ♪

I personally would be nervous as hell

if a U-Haul truck full of millions of dollars,

so much money that I don't even know exactly how much is in it,

is just sitting outside this party,

right outside on the curb in Long Beach, California.

♪ ♪

Back at the Dunbar Armored depot,

the hostages have freed themselves and called 911.

Immediately, Los Angeles Police Department

dispatches units to the facility,

and the FBI was notified

and responded to the robbery.

When investigators arrive on the scene,

they start examining the facility.

One of the early things they notice

is that there's been some damage to the lock

of the front door, but it looks like a cover-up.

It looks like, more than likely,

someone used a key to get into the facility

and then damaged the lock afterwards,

which all signals that there probably was

an inside man for the robbery.

♪ ♪

Meanwhile, in Long Beach,

the party has finally broken up.

The guys move the truck to a nearby alley

where the Pace gives each member of the crew

a small cut of their full share.

After they divvy up their shares,

there's still a lot of money,

so Thomas Johnson actually rents a storage unit.

And they take the U-Haul truck there to unload the remainder.

♪ ♪

Four hours after the heist,

LAPD and the FBI are scouring the building for evidence.

♪ ♪

While the crew took every precaution,

there's one small detail they missed.

♪ ♪

A key piece of evidence that the authorities find

is this plastic lens.

It looks like it came off of a broken taillight.

But it doesn't match any of the Dunbar vehicles.

♪ ♪

Two days after the heist, executives at Dunbar determine

just how much cash is missing,

$18.9 million.

Keep in mind, of this $18.9 million,

better than 75% of that was in $20 bill denomination.

So you can only imagine the volume of the money

that was taken by Pace and these robbers.

The amount of money that was stolen was so high

that law enforcement fears copycat robberies likely.

So they don't want to tell the public

exactly how much money was taken.

So they get around it by just staying very vague.

They just say to the media,

"More than $1 million was stolen,"

and leave it at that.

♪ ♪

Missing security tapes, speed of the heist,

point to an inside job.

Investigators give all 130 current and recently fired

Dunbar employees lie detector tests.

Only two people fail,

Allen Pace and his girlfriend, Tamiko.

And other evidence also points to Pace.

One of the employees that was tied up

recognized Allen Pace's voice

when he spoke to the female.

He referred to her as "baby"

in several of the comments that he made to her.

Between the failed polygraph and the witness statement,

Dunbar management expects an arrest.

But investigators don't have a case.

We didn't have the actual physical evidence

that would support an arrest of Allen Pace.

There was a lot of conjecture and supposition,

but we just didn't have the evidence.

With no way to pin the Dunbar Armored depot heist

on Pace, the investigation drags on for months.

A year after the heist,

stumped investigators form a task force

with agents from the FBI, LAPD,

and the government agency you really don't want

on your case, the IRS.

For several months, we were following up on any

and every lead that we had whatsoever.

And several of these leads turned out to be fruitless.

♪ ♪

Executives offer a reward for any information

about the robbery to the tune of $250,000.

A quarter of $1 million is now offered

for information about this robbery.

Law enforcement is having a tough time finding leads

because of Pace's first rule for his secret millionaires,

don't spend lavishly.

In the beginning, because they've made a pact

to lay low, the crew is very modest

in how they're spending their money.

Pace was really thinking about it as long-term gain.

He really wants to set himself up financially.

They're thinking about, you know,

how they can create a better life for themselves.

When they do start spending money,

they're not spending it on, like, Lamborghinis,

McMansions, or even traveling.

They are spending money on property

in and around the LA area.

And they also start a business

called Extreme Entertainment

that's basically just a money laundering front

to be able to pay them back some of the money

that they stole without raising any red flags.

♪ ♪

Fast-forward another year,

and the crew is confident they've gotten away with it.

♪ ♪

And that's exactly when someone gets careless.

♪ ♪

He makes probably the most amateur

of all amateur mistakes.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

After two years of playing it smart,

the heist crew's world is rocked

all because of one rookie's dumb mistake.

The problems begin with Eugene Hill.

He takes about $100,000 of the money that was stolen,

and he wants to invest it in land.

The money is still wrapped with paper straps from the robbery.

The realtor is instantly suspicious

and contacts the police.

They had heard that there's a $250,000 reward

being offered for this Dunbar heist,

and they call the authorities.

Part of the downfall of this crew

is their naivete with this type of crime.

That's not how you pay for real estate.

♪ ♪

We were able to verify these paper money straps

because of what was actually stamped on them

and the date of September the 11th,

of September the 12th, 1997.

♪ ♪

But it's not just Eugene Hill

who suddenly has a target on his back.

Once they begin to look more closely at Eugene Hill,

what the investigators find out is that Eugene Hill

was writing checks from his sister's bank account.

They knew that his sister didn't have the income

to support the kind of expenses

that were occurring at the time.

Meanwhile, the FBI crime lab determines

that the tailgate fragment found at the scene

is unique to U-Haul trucks.

With a handful of suspects' names to search for,

the investigation goes old school.

Myself and probably three or four others were sitting

in a room going through box after box after box

that contained these U-Haul records.

And when we found that rental agreement

in the name of Eugene Hill,

obviously, we were elated.

First one in, first one caught.

Eugene Hill is the weakest link.

He rented the U-Haul truck

using his own California driver's license.

The fact that the truck was rented on September 12th

and returned on September the 13th,

the day after the robbery,

a tremendous break for us.

♪ ♪

We approach Eugene Hill at his residence

for the sole purpose of interviewing him

and trying to determine his whereabouts

during the time of the actual robbery.

We took him into custody the following day.

♪ ♪

Even though they had all agreed,

if you get caught, don't say anything,

we'll take care of you financially,

it's a whole different thing when you're actually

under that hot lamp and they're asking you questions.

Investigators tell Hill that his sister will be

charged as an accomplice unless he cooperates.

Family wins out over friends.

Eugene Hill admitted to his participation in the robbery,

and he named all of his accomplices in the robbery.

Eugene began breaking down everything from A to Z,

and that ultimately led to the downfall of the entire crew.

The next domino to fall is Thomas Johnson.

A few months later, police arrest Freddie McCrary,

and shortly after, Terry Brown.

Allen Pace knows he's next.

♪ ♪

Allen Pace understands he's got some explaining to do.

So rather than go in unprepared,

because he doesn't seem like the kind of person

who does anything without forethought,

he decides to turn himself in, but does so with an attorney.

Pace and his friends are indicted on charges

of robbery, conspiracy, and money laundering.

But what they hear in their first

court appearance astonishes them.

The United States magistrate actually reads the indictment,

this $18.9 million loss.

We could literally see each of the individuals turning around

and looking toward the crowd

as if they're wondering who committed that robbery,

because each of these individuals told us

they'd never had any idea how much money they had stolen.

Pace maintains his innocence.

He and brother-in-law, Erik Boyd,

go to trial and are found guilty.

Pace is sentenced to 24 years,

more than double the prison time of the friends

who testified against him.

I do imagine Allen Pace during that time in jail

thinking if he could have done it all over again,

he wouldn't have recruited Eugene Hill,

even though Eugene Hill was the first guy that he picked.

Everyone involved with the Dunbar heist

has served their time and moved on with their lives.

Some may have moved up as well.

This amateur crew got away with $18.9 million.

In today's money, it would be well over $30 million.

The feds only recovered about $7 million.

♪ ♪

Most of the money, millions of dollars,

is still unaccounted for.

And where could all that money be now?

Some of the money was probably distributed

to some family members, maybe even some friends.

And some could even be

still in storage facilities to this day.

Only Allen Pace and his five friends know

what happened to all those untraceable $20 bills.

What we do know is that one

disgruntled employee's decide

to get rich and get even

led to six amateur thieves

pulling off the largest

cash heist of all time.

At just shy of $19 million,

the Dunbar Armored car depot

is without question

one of history's greatest heists.

♪ ♪

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