Jan. 17, 1950: Eleven gunmen wearing navy peacoats, chauffeur’s caps and Halloween masks rob a Brink’s armored car warehouse in Boston, making off with loot worth $2.7 million and leaving no clues. The Great Brink’s Robbery, as it is known, was so well planned that the crime might never have been solved if one of the gang hadn’t confessed. The heist now serves as a metaphor for criminal audacity and became a model of planning and management for executives at such companies as Enron Corp. and Tyco International Ltd., WorldCom Inc. and Global Crossing Ltd.—who are themselves now metaphors for corporate venality. But there is a deeper lesson in the Brink’s job and the corporate scandals that tends to get obscured amid the proliferation of metaphors. The lesson, of course, is that crime doesn’t pay if everyone can’t keep his mouth shut. —Jeffrey Kanige
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