How the Lufthansa Heist Put the Mob in the Headlines

If youve seen the movie Goodfellas, you already know the basic story: On December 11, 1978, a team of thieves led by an associate of the Lucchese crime family stole $6 million in cash and jewelry from the Lufthansa Airlines vault at Kennedy Airport. At the time, it was the most ambitious robbery in American history, and it still counts as one of the largest cash hauls ever, anywhere in the world.   The Genesis of the Lufthansa Heist Theres a reason employers dont like their workers to get involved with the mob: once youre in hock, theres no telling what youll give up to save your life. In the fall of 1978, a Kennedy Airport employee named Louis Werner owed $20,000 in gambling debts to a Mafia-associated bookie named Martin Krugman; to worm his way out, he gave Krugman a tip about a huge shipment of cash about to be shipped to New York by the German airline Lufthansa. (The money derived from monetary exchanges in West Germany used by American tourists and servicemen.) Krugman, in turn, told his fellow mob associate Henry Hill, who passed along the information to master thief Jimmy Burke (the latter two were portrayed by Ray Liotta and Robert de Niro, respectively, in Goodfellas). Beyond passing along the initial tip, Louis Werner was instrumental in successfully pulling off the Lufthansa heist, since he actually worked at Kennedy Airport. He gave the Burke crew a master key, briefed them on the names of the employees who would be working the day of the heist, and even told them the best place to park their getaway car. Before they could spring into action, though, the robbers had to square things away with the Five Families of New York: the Lucchese family backed the operation, but the Gambino family insisted on placing one of its own soldiers with the crew and the Bonnano family demanded a cut of the proceeds, since Kennedy Airport was technically on its turf. The Day of the Heist Oddly enough, given its centrality to the movies plot, Martin Scorsese doesnt actually depict the Lufthansa heist in Goodfellas; all he gives audiences is a shot of Ray Liotta celebrating in the shower as the robbery is reported on the radio. In any event, the heist went off amazingly smoothly: at three oclock in the morning, Burkes crew burst into the Kennedy Airport facility, rounded up the employees (without, thankfully, actually killing anybody) and loaded 40 parcels of cash into their waiting van, and then sternly warned their hostages not to alert the authorities for 15 minutes. Why 15 minutes? Because Louis Werner made sure to tell Burke that Port Authority police could seal off Kennedy Airport (which is the size of a small city) within 90 seconds of a distress call. But heres where things began to get sloppy. The robbers drove to Jimmy Rourkes garage in Canarsie, Brooklyn, and loaded the money into another vehicle that was then driven to a safe house (no one knows exactly where) by Burke and his son. But rather than taking the original car to a junkyard in New Jersey, where it was supposed to be immediately compacted, getaway driver Parnell Stacks Edwards chose to get high instead in his girlfriends apartment, parking the van carelessly on the street outside. By morning, the police had the van in custody, and Edwards fled into the night, his fingerprints still on the steering wheel. The Bloody Aftermath of the Lufthansa Heist Not a sentimental man in the best of times, Jimmy Burke, in possession of $6 million in cash, was driven to murderous paranoia in the aftermath of the Lufthansa heist. It didnt take long for the police to put two and two together and identify the Burke crew as the likely culprits; they wired Burkes lounge, tapped the pay phones out on the street, and even followed members of the gang in black helicopters. In order to cover his tracks, Burke went on a killing spree. The first to go was Stacks Edwards (executed in his home, in a scene memorably recreated in Goodfellas with Joe Pesci and Samuel L. Jackson); the body of Martin Krugman was never found; and at least seven other people associated with the heist also wound up whacked or missing. In the end, despite its  reams of surveillance, the FBI was never able to definitively connect the Burke gang with the Lufthansa heist, and the money was never recovered. (Ironically, the only person ever convicted for the robbery was Louis Werner, the inside man who had made the entire scheme possible.) As for Jimmy Burke, he wound up jailed by the feds for his involvement in a college basketball point-shaving scam. and was then slapped with another 20 years for the murder of Richard Eaton (a low-level mob associate who was briefly depicted in Goodfellas frozen stiff and hanging off a meat hook). Burke died of cancer in 1996, and Henry Hill in 2012, meaning that we may never know how many houses, sports cars, fur coats and home theaters the cash from the Lufthansa heist wound up funding.

Comparing Napoleon The Pig To Hitler In George Orwells...

Animal Farm Analysis I will be comparing Napoleon the pig to Hitler as to how he conquered his people and used the jews as a scapegoat. In the book â€Å"Animal Farm† by George Orwell, Napoleon uses his competing pig, snowball, as a scapegoat to gain control of the people. He does this by having dogs chase him off of the farm saying that Snowball was conspiring with the humans. This allowed Napoleon to take complete control of the farm and the rest of the animals. If the animals stopped the dogs from chasing off Snowball, it would have completely stopped his plans. However, because it was successful, he was able to use him as a way to focus the animal’s anger and keep them distracted from Napoleons devious actions. For example, Squealer the†¦show more content†¦He gave them the false inspiration and hope that they were working for to stay free. This is what Hitler did to the Jews who were able to work, he had in his concentration camps say â€Å"work to be fre e†, but in reality he did not have the intention to set them free. The reason as to why the animals did not rebel was for two reasons. One being that they just were not educated at all and the other reason is because Napoleon has an immense amount of fierce dogs around him at all times. This made him an intimidating pig. The animals were oblivious to the corruption around them that he shrugged off a fellow animal dying by another simply because Napoleon said it was fine and the Commandments said that it was exceptional. The dumbest of the animals was a horse named boxer. Because he was the strongest of the farm animals, what he said greatly influenced the others animals, and because he was on the side of Napoleon the other animals followed. There were many times were the animals would have revolted without Boxer present, but after he died, it was too late to turn back. He inspired the animals by constantly saying, â€Å"I will work harder†, and, â€Å"Napoleon is alway s right†. This often concluded questions regarding Napoleon’s style of handling business. Hitler had the SS, which was his secret police force that performed much of his commands. The Gestapo were the officials of the SS, and helped Hitler lead his army. UnlikeShow MoreRelatedAnimal Farm Corruption Essay1289 Words   |  6 Pagesâ€Å"The Animal Farm†. It shows how a utopia can turn into a dystopia in a blink of an eye. â€Å"Now comrades, what is our nature of life? To work until we die..† (Orwell 5). This quote shows the animal s way of thinking, and how they are becoming tired of the laborious working conditions in their lives. This shows the readers on how the physical life can lead to a revolt, as when a whole community gets angered about the same thing, usually, violence breaks out. With the rising tensions, the animals soon

Business Process Modeling Analysis

Questions: Introduction Tapzeem Chemicals is a wholesaler who supplies independent pharmacies operating in Australia with pharmaceutical drugs. The company operates through a sales force, with each salesperson being allocated a region to look after. Each region contains a number of pharmacies, some of whom are existing clients. During the weekly visit the salesperson takes orders for the goods that the pharmacy wishes to receive in the next delivery. Fulfil Order Process At the end of each day the salesperson faxes the orders through to the sales administration team, who check the orders for completeness (name, delivery address, etc). Any orders that are incomplete are returned to the salesperson, who is responsible for returning the order to the client. Complete orders are recorded, and the sales administration team then check to see if the client is an existing client. For existing clients the sales administration team, send the order to the warehouse for the dispatch of the goods. For new clients, the order is passed to the credit control clerk who checks the client's credit worthiness. If the credit status of a potential client is unsatisfactory the salesperson is notified and it is their responsibility to notify the potential client that they have been rejected. If the credit status of a potential client is satisfactory the credit control clerk passes the order to the sales ledger clerk who then prepares a client file. Once the client file is prepared the order is passed to the warehouse so that the goods can be dispatched. Once the warehouse receives the order, a member of the warehouse team picks, or selects, the goods for dispatch. Once the goods are picked they are checked against the order by the warehouse supervisor. If the order is incomplete, the complete order is returned to the warehouse team member to re-pick the goods. The order is then rechecked by the warehouse supervisor. When the order is complete the warehouse dispatches the goods to the cli ent. Once the goods have been dispatched the sales ledger clerk prepares and dispatches an invoice to the client. (a) Students are required to develop a process model using the swim lane approach for the Fulfillment Order process described in the above scenario. (b) Describe Four areas in which Tapzeem could improve their Fulfilment Order process and explain the impact of each improvement suggestion. Answers: Introduction: Business processing model is the activity of representing processes for improving the existing process of the business. The popular organization Trapzeem Chemicals deals in supplying various pharmaceutical drugs in Australia. The organization has operated their drug supply business through their sales forces. As stated by Laguna and Marklund (2013), the organization has implemented the business objectives to increase the process speed and quality of the supply system. The organization has implemented the business processing model to reduce the cost. The business modeling process is motivated by the requirement of the organization. As stated by Meyer et al. (2013), new technological innovation and information technology improves the business modeling process. It has been observed that the change management program is involved in the improvement of business decision process of the organization (Dumas et al. 2013). Additionally, it is understood that the Southgate Hospital Accident Eme rgency Department (AE) has implemented a new entry process for the hospital patients. The new strategy has been implemented to remove the harshness of the patients (Rosemann and vom 2015). a) Process model for fulfillment order process: Trapzeem Chemicals has implemented an independent pharmacies operation system in Australia. The organization has assigned a number of pharmacists to provide service to the clients (Seuring 2013). It has been observed that the salesperson had taken orders from the customers and delivered medicines to them. The organization has already implemented and fulfilled the process of delivering the orders through the sales administration team (Van 2013).. The sales administration team has checked the orders. The orders are usually recorded and sold by the sales administration team. It has been observed that the organization has maintained separate processes for the existing clients (Dumas et al. 2013). The sales team is responsible in sending the orders to the warehouse for dispatching the goods. It is understood that the organization has implemented separate systems to process the orders of new clients. The orders of the new clients have been passed by the credit control clerk (Seuring 2013). The credit control clerk has checked the credit worthiness of the clients. The credit control department has the responsibility to notify the potential clients about the rejection of their orders. As stated by La Rosa et al. (2013), the credit control team passes orders only if the credit status of the potential clients is satisfactory. Thereafter, the sales ledger clerk processes the file with respect to that particular client. As stated by Grner et al. 2013), the goods can be dispatched after preparing the order of the client. The team has dispatched the goods after receiving confirmation from credit control department. It has been observed that incomplete orders are returned to the warehouse team members to repack the goods. In such an instance, the order is rechecked by the warehouse supervisors. As stated by Laguna and Marklund (2013), completed orders are usually the ones that are dispatched to the clients. This existing process of the organization is long and a critical one. This process is a lengthy one as it requires a long time to process the orders and finally deliver the same to the customers. Figure 1: Process model along with Swim lane approach (Source: Laguna and Marklund 2013) The Swim Line approach is a cross functional flowchart, to map the process within the product processing unit. According to the Swim lane approach, the product processing system of the organization is divided into 5 different segments namely customers, sales, contracts, legal and fulfillment (Meyer et al. 2013). The customers have ordered medicines, paid money for the medicines and have received the same. The sales team has collected the orders from the customers and has entered the code of their orders (Seuring 2013). After that the sales person contacts with the agents in order to review the orders. The agents then analyze the orders. If the standard terms have been followed by the sales person, then the agents approve the orders (Dumas et al. 2013). After observing the entire order processing process, the processing unit legally approves the order. Finally, the product is picked by the shipment and finally shipped to the customers house. As stated by La Rosa et al. (2013), if agents observe any kind of discrimination such as payment issues, medicine unavailability or wrong order, then they may cancel the order. Thus under such circumstances the order may not be shipped. The agents would then inform the sales personnels about the reason behind cancelling the orders (Rosemann and vom 2015). It has been observed that the order processing procedure of Tapzeem Chemicals is quite similar to the order process model with Swim lane approach. However, the organization has maintained different procedures for existing customers as well as the new customers (Laguna and Marklund 2013). The organization has assigned the credit control staffs to process or reject the orders. b) Four different areas through which Tapzeem could improve their fulfillment order processing: It has been observed that the sales persons fax the orders by day end. After that, the administrative team checks the completeness of the orders such as name and delivery address of the customer (Rosemann and vom 2015). Thereafter, the administration refuses the incomplete orders. Next, the administrative department checks the record details to verify customer credentials to identify whether the customer is new or existent Grner et al. 2013). This system of placing order takes a long time to complete. Therefore, the sales persons have to implement an online order strategy which can aid in transferring the order details to the administrative department. In this way the sales department can convey the order details as soon as information regarding it is received (Dumas et al. 2013). They do not need to wait for day end. Therefore, with this process the administration gets the order details through the day. Thus this process would save much time. Consequently, the entire order processin g process would be a swifter one. . As stated by Rosemann and vom (2015), such swift processes will enable the customers acquire their medicine within a short time. This may in turn increase customer satisfaction. It has been found that the administration team directly processes the medicines for the existing customers. However, in case of new customers, the team sends the orders to the credit control staffs. The credit control department then analyzes the credit status of the new customers (Antunes et al. 2013). The credit control department rejects the orders of new customers if the credit control of the potential clients is unsatisfactory. Thereafter, the credit control department informs the sales department about the rejection of the order (Dumas et al. 2013). Therefore, the credit control department has to be flexible with the new customers. It is understood that they may have maintained ethics and company policies, but they need to provide opportunities to new customers to clear their payments according to their order Grner et al. 2013). Additionally, the credit control department has to implement various payment options such as online transaction, fund transfer, payment through credit card or debit card and pay pal for the customers. Such availability of varied options will help the customers clear the amount within the second instance, thereby increasing customer satisfaction (Rosemann and vom 2015). It is understood that the credit control department is vested with the responsibility of transferring the the accepted orders to the warehouse department. Thereafter, the warehouse then collects the medicines and sends the same to the packaging department (Feldmannn 2013). Next, the packaging department then rechecks the packaged product a gainst the order details. This process takes a long time to finalize the dispatch products. Therefore, the organization needs to implement the barcode technology or QR code technology for matching the product with the order details (Li et al. 2014). The organization has to simply install barcode generators and printers and a barcode scanner for this process. The barcode developer has implemented barcodes against the product specification and customer information (Stavrou et al. 2014). Therefore, the packaging department simply needs to scan the barcode to match order details with that of customers (Dumas et al. 2013). This innovation will decrease the errors and the organization will deliver product within a short time. It has been observed, that entire sales process is usually controlled by the sales force. The customers have ordered their medicine through the sellers (Fleischmann et al. 2012). It has been noticed that the sales persons are not available all time. Therefore the customers have no option to order their medicines from the wholesaler. Keeping this in mind the organization has to implement online services for their customers, where they can order the medicines directly through the company website (Van 2013). The online orders are directly processed by the administration team. The customers can payments through online payment modes (van 2013). This online facility attracts more customers and satisfies them, thereby increasing the brand value and profit of the organization. Conclusion: This assignment is based on business order processing for two different industries such as a medicine wholesaler and a healthcare organization. The order processing system has been analyzed along with the Swim lane approach. It has been found that the organization has improved their order processing strategy with the help of an innovation technology. On the other hand, the healthcare organization has to implement the proposed patient handling process and provide services to the three different types of patients. Reference list: Antunes, P., Simes, D., Carrio, L. and Pino, J.A., 2013. An end-user approach to business process modeling.Journal of Network and Computer Applications,36(6), pp.1466-1479. Dumas, M., La Rosa, M., Mendling, J. and Reijers, H.A., 2013.Fundamentals of business process management(pp. I-XXVII). Heidelberg: Springer. Feldmann, C., 2013.The Practical Guide to Business Process Reengineering Using IDEFO. Addison-Wesley. Fleischmann, A., Schmidt, W., Stary, C., Obermeier, S. and Brger, E., 2012.Subject-oriented business process management. Springer Publishing Company, Incorporated. Grner, G., BoKovi, M., Parreiras, F.S. and GaEvi, D., 2013. Modeling and validation of business process families.Information Systems,38(5), pp.709-726. La Rosa, M., Dumas, M., Uba, R. and Dijkman, R., 2013. Business process model merging: An approach to business process consolidation.ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM),22(2), p.11. Laguna, M. and Marklund, J., 2013.Business process modeling, simulation and design. CRC Press. Li, Y., Cao, B., Xu, L., Yin, J., Deng, S., Yin, Y. and Wu, Z., 2014. An efficient recommendation method for improving business process modeling.Industrial Informatics, IEEE Transactions on,10(1), pp.502-513. Meyer, S., Ruppen, A. and Magerkurth, C., 2013, June. Internet of things-aware process modeling: integrating IoT devices as business process resources. InAdvanced Information Systems Engineering(pp. 84-98). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. Rosemann, M. and vom Brocke, J., 2015. The six core elements of business process management. InHandbook on Business Process Management 1(pp. 105-122). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. Seuring, S., 2013. A review of modeling approaches for sustainable supply chain management.Decision support systems,54(4), pp.1513-1520. Stavrou, V., Kandias, M., Karoulas, G. and Gritzalis, D., 2014. Business Process Modeling for Insider threat monitoring and handling. InTrust, Privacy, and Security in Digital Business(pp. 119-131). Springer International Publishing. van der Aalst, W.M., 2013. Business process management: A comprehensive survey.ISRN Software Engineering,2013.