In December 1978, Gotti assisted in the largest unrecovered cash robbery in history, the infamous Lufthansa Heist at Kennedy Airport. Gotti had made arrangements for the getaway van to be crushed and baled at a scrapyard in Brooklyn. Gotti's cut of the heist was a reported $200,000. The driver of the van, Parnell "Stacks" Edwards, failed to follow orders; rather than driving the vehicle to the scrapyard, he parked it near a fire hydrant and went to sleep at his girlfriend's apartment. The NYPD recovered the van and lifted the fingerprints of several perpetrators of the robbery, helping to unravel the heist.