Pierre Hotel Robbery

The Pierre Hotel Robbery was a hotel robbery planned in late 1971, by Samuel Nalo and Robert Comfort, an associate of the Lucchese crime family, and carried out by several of his associates. Years later, in his biography titled, The Story of Bobby Comfort, The Man Who Robbed The Pierre Hotel, by Ira Berkow, Comfort revealed to his biographer that the tally of the Pierre heist totaled approximately $28,000,000 in jewelry, gems, and cash.

Planning and execution

Soricho 'Sammy' Nalo and Robert Comfort were professional burglars and thieves. They had previously stolen $1,000,000 in jewelry and cash from the Sherry Netherland Hotel and performed major robberies/burglaries at the Regency Hotel, the Drake Hotel, the Carlyle Hotel and the St. Regis. Nalo was the main planner behind all the heists but Comfort was also a major organizer. But one of their most dramatic capers, according to Comfort's disclosures to Ira Berkow, took place on October 11, 1970 when they held captive the Italian actress, Sophia Loren, in her apartment at the Hampshire House hotel on Central Park South, in Manhattan, and relieved her of approximately $2,200,000 in jewels and diamonds.

The final preparations for The Pierre robbery occurred on December 30, 1971 in the back room of Nalo's night club, the Port Said. There Nalo brought the team together and informed them of their intended target. The team consisted of Lucchese crime family associate Robert "Bobby" Germaine, whose job would entail prying open lock boxes maintained for guests in a vault; Ali-Ben, a Turkish-Albanian contract killer who worked primarily for the Turkish Mafia; Al Green, an African/American and brother-in-law of Ali Ben; Alan Visconti; a reputed hotel burglar, known as Nick 'the Cat' Sacco, who is identified as "Petey" in a book titled, Contract Killer, by William Hoffman and Lake Headley. Hoffman and Headley wrote the book in collaboration with another one of the Pierre robbers, Donald 'Tony the Greek' Frankos. Frankos, a freelance contract killer was a Lucchese mob associate.

This group arrived at the Pierre Hotel at 3:50 a.m. on January 2, 1972. Ten minutes later, Green, dressed in a chauffeur's uniform, drove a black Cadillac limousine up to the 61st Street entrance. Robert G, with Sacco and Visconti, got out and told the security guard, "Reservations, Dr. Foster's party." The security guard called the registration desk and confirmed that a Dr. Foster---Comfort's alias—had paid for a room, and the guard unlocked the door. They held the guard at gunpoint as they entered the hotel. Green remained on watch outside, while Nick 'the Cat' Sacco roamed throughout the lobby area, searching for hotel employees or anyone else who might not nave been seized by his cohorts.

The date of the robbery was perfect. Most of the hotel's guests were soundly sleeping off their escapades from the previous New Year's Eve extravaganzas, which they had attended wearing their finest jewels. The jewels were kept in safety deposit boxes downstairs until more secure bank vaults re-opened at 9:00 that morning. Also, because of the holiday, the hotel had only a skeleton crew, including guards.

The men quickly rounded up all the staff. Frankos guarded the 61st Street entrance, handcuffing anyone who confronted him and leading them to Visconti, who brought the hostages to a large alcove near the registration desk, where he ordered them to lie face down on the floor. The number of hostages grew steadily, ultimately totaling nineteen, but the robbers had brought three dozen pairs of handcuffs to deal with the situation.

The robbers were all dressed in disguises. Nalo wore a huge wig, fake nose and eyeglasses, and all the burglars wore gloves and carried guns. Nalo forced the hotel auditor to provide the index cards that matched the boxes to depositors. They only broke into lock boxes of people whose names they recognized, which included Gabrielle Lagerwall, Harold Uris, Tom Yawkey, and Calliope Kulukundis. The burglars did not handcuff anyone who looked ill or sick, and referred to their hostages as "sir" and "miss", never raising their voices.

The entire robbery took two and a half hours. Within that time Bobby G and Comfort were able to break into close to one quarter of the 208 lock boxes in the vault. At 6:15, Bobby Comfort informed the hostages that they were leaving and to not tell the police if they were able to identify anyone or they would be murdered. Before departing Comfort gave a $20 bill to each hotel employee that they had detained, except for the security guards, and they all left at 6:30, just ahead of the hotel's incoming 7:00 a.m. shift.

Fencing the Goods

Nalo went to Christie 'the Tick' Furnaro to fence the stolen goods. Furnaro demanded an outraging 33% of the take. Nalo became so enraged that he transported the bulk of it to a friend's house in Detroit, Michigan. Robert Comfort returned from Rochester, New York where he lived, to help Nalo fence the jewels. Sammy Nalo owed a lot of money to illegal bookmakers who were threatening his life. The police were notified of his whereabouts by an informant and he was arrested at the Royal Manhattan Hotel.

Arrests and Convictions

Nalo was also arrested for his alleged participation in the robbery and the two burglars each received four-year sentences. Shortly after the arrests of Comfort and Nalo, Nalo's friend in Michigan became nervous and turned over $750,000 in jewels to police. Millions more in currency and jewels were taken by another friend of Nalo's who absconded to Mexico and was never heard of again.

Sammy Nalo suffered another loss. He told an FBI Confidential Informant that he had buried about $950,000 in diamonds and rubies under the bathroom floorboards of his apartment in the Bronx. While the FBI case agent was in the process of obtaining a search warrant of the apartment, he instructed a New York City Detective, George Bermudez, to guard Nalo's premises. Once the warrant was effected, upon searching the apartment the jewels Nalo claimed to have hidden there were not found. Consequently, the investigators considered Detective Bermudez a suspect of Nalo's missing property. An investigation into Bermudez's affairs was launched. However, to avoid incriminating himself, Nalo recanted his statement to the FBI Informant regarding the missing jewels; and less any corroborating evidence of the stolen items the allegations against Detective Bermudez began to lose steam. Meanwhile, he abruptly and untimely retired from the NYPD, and moved to Florida.

Aftermath

Ali-Ben and his brother-in-law Al Green read in the newspaper about the stolen property recovered in Michigan and perceived that Nalo had tried to swindle them out of their share. They fled the country to somewhere in Europe, where they cherished their wealth for several years. Robert Comfort then fenced the jewelry to mobsters in the Rochester, New York Mafia. The mobsters kept the loot and when Comfort attempted to retrieve some of it, they nearly murdered him. Donald Frankos was supposed to receive $750,000, and was enraged that all he initially received was $50,000. Over time, Donald was given a total of $175,000, the same with Bobby G and Al Visconti. Nick 'the Cat' Sacco received $250,000. Ali-Ben and Al Green spent most of their money in Europe. Robert Comfort ended up with $1.5 million and Samuel Nalo received his jewels that his friends had not stolen.

Retribution

Donald Frankos chiefly blamed Nalo for the rip-off and vowed to murder him. Samuel Nalo was subsequently murdered by an unknown gunman in 1988, but not by Frankos. He was also angry at his co-conspirators, Ali-Ben and Al Green, but Frankos knew that they too had been cheated by Nalo. Frankos also surmised that Robert Comfort had been muscled out of his share and gladly left with his life. Frankos would later murder both Ali-Ben and Al Green in 1981.

Presently, everyone of The Pierre perpetrators are dead, except Nick 'the Cat' Sacco. The Cat is currently in the Federal Witness Protection Program for matters unrelated to The Pierre Hotel heist.

References

Coordinates: 40°45′55″N 73°58′20″W / 40.7652°N 73.9721°W