On this day‬ in 2012 Henry Hill passed away at the age of 69. For 25 years he was a Luchesse Crime Family associate who took part in the 1968 Air France Heist and then ten years later in the infamous 1978 Lufthansa Heist.

In the Lufthansa Heist an estimated $5 million in cash ($18.1 million today) and $875,000 in jewelry ($3.2 million today) were stolen.

In 1980 he became an FBI informant and the information he provided lead to 50 convictions which included Paul Vario and Jimmy Burke.

Hill was also portrayed by Ray Liotta in the 1990 film Goodfellas.
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On this day in 2012, Henry Hill passed away at the age of 69, bringing to a close one of the most remarkable and turbulent lives in the history of American organised crime. Born in Brooklyn in 1943 to an Irish-American father and a Sicilian mother, Hill grew up in the shadow of the Lucchese Crime Family, one of New York's powerful Five Families, and was drawn into their world as a teenager. Despite never becoming a fully made man — his mixed heritage barred him from that honour under the strict rules of La Cosa Nostra — Hill spent 25 years as a trusted associate, earning the respect and confidence of some of the most dangerous men in the country.

Hill's criminal career was marked by two landmark heists that cemented his place in mob folklore. The first came in 1968 at John F. Kennedy International Airport, when he participated in the Air France robbery, a job that gave him a taste for the kind of audacious, high-stakes criminality that would define his life. Ten years later, he was involved in the planning and execution of the infamous 1978 Lufthansa Heist, also at JFK, which remains one of the largest cash robberies in American history. The crew made off with an estimated five million dollars in cash — the equivalent of over eighteen million dollars today — along with eight hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars in jewellery, worth more than three million dollars in today's money. The job was orchestrated by Jimmy Burke, Hill's long-time associate and mentor, and has since become the stuff of legend in organised crime circles.

The aftermath of the Lufthansa Heist was brutal. Burke, paranoid about loose ends, ordered the murders of nearly everyone connected to the robbery. Hill, facing serious narcotics charges of his own, made the fateful decision in 1980 to turn FBI informant and enter the witness protection programme. The information he provided was devastating to the Lucchese organisation, leading to over fifty convictions, including those of Burke and the powerful caporegime Paul Vario.

Hill's story was immortalised on screen when director Martin Scorsese adapted his life for the 1990 film Goodfellas, with Ray Liotta delivering an iconic portrayal that introduced Hill's world to a global audience. The film is widely regarded as one of the greatest ever made, and Hill's legacy, controversial as it remains within mob circles, is inseparable from the broader cultural fascination with the golden era of American organised crime.