Lufthansa Heist Escape Room

Five Families escape room guide · JFK Airport · December 11, 1978

The biggest cash robbery in American history, and somebody left the ski mask behind. The Lufthansa Heist is one of the Five Families escape rooms: a 3D recreation of a real scene from mob history that you walk around as your own mobster, searching for evidence and cracking a four-digit padlock before the clock runs out. This guide covers the real story behind the room, what you'll find inside, and how to get out.

The real story

The vault held US banknotes shipped back from West Germany, plus a consignment of jewelry. The crew took about $5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewelry.

In the months after the heist, most of the men involved were murdered, allegedly on the orders of Jimmy Burke, who feared they would talk. Only a fraction of the money was ever recovered.

The night shift took their meal break at 3am. Six of them were in the lunchroom when the masked men walked in.

The inside man was Louis Werner, a Lufthansa cargo worker with gambling debts. He was promised ten percent of the take. He was the only person ever convicted for the heist.

Despite being one of the most investigated robberies in FBI history, the Lufthansa heist was never officially solved. Jimmy Burke was never charged with the robbery itself. The physical evidence recovered at the scene was insufficient to build a case without witness testimony.

Louis Werner, the inside man, was arrested within weeks of the heist after investigators traced the security breach back through cargo manifests and staff records. His arrest began the chain of events that eventually brought down much of the crew.

Setting the scene

It's 3am on December 11, 1978. The job is done. Six million dollars in cash and jewels — the biggest cargo robbery in American history — is already in the van.

But someone left something behind.

A ski mask. A cargo tag with a partial print. A guard schedule with handwriting that connects back to the inside man. Any one of them puts the crew in a federal case.

You've been sent back in to find it. The Port Authority do a sweep of this building at 3:30am. You have the service door code — but the cargo bay lock is different and nobody thought to write it down.

Before you get inside, you make your own way there. Drive the airport service road at night, past the chain-link fences and the blue runway lights, to Cargo Building 261. A green arrow shows you the door.

Three rooms in one

The Lufthansa Heist isn't one room, it's three, and you only see the next one once you've earned it. Each has three things to search. Search everything in the room you're in and a door unlocks, a glowing arrow shows you the way through, and the next part of the scene opens up. The clock keeps running the whole time: 5 minutes for all three.

The padlock code is spread across all three, so you can't escape from the cargo floor. Move fast in the first room: the last room is where people run out of time.

What you'll find in each room

There are 9 things to search in the Lufthansa Heist, three in each room. 4 of them hide a digit of the padlock code, 2 are dead ends put there to waste your time, and the rest fill in the story. The staff lockers, the wristwatch and the supervisor's desk stay locked until you've found 3 clues. The cargo tag, the single glove and the cargo bay door stay locked until you've found 6 clues.

First room: The cargo floor

Second room: The lunchroom

Third room: The vault room

The Lufthansa Heist escape room walkthrough

1. Take in the room. Drag to look around and walk with the stick or arrow keys. Question marks show everything you can search.
2. Clear each room. Search all three things in the cargo floor and the way through to the lunchroom unlocks. Clear that and you're into the vault room. Follow the glowing arrow to the next door.
3. Find the four digits. Each piece of evidence that matters gives you one digit, and tells you which position it goes in. Stuck? The hints below point you to the right room, not the answer.
4. Ignore the red herrings. Some items look important and aren't. Don't spend the clock on them.
5. Open the padlock with the four digits in order, before the 5 minutes run out.
6. Make the call. You'll choose how it ends: Take the mask, the schedule, the tag — wipe the locker — leave through the service door; Grab the mask and go — the rest is probably fine; The sweep is too close — get out now. Each ending tells you what really happened.

Tips for escaping

• Read each piece of evidence to the end: the digit is usually in the last line.
• If the clock's getting away from you, a hint costs 25 Mob Coins and an extra minute costs 50.
• Holding a drink or a cigar from the Social Club gives you 20 extra seconds in every room.
• On a phone, turn it sideways for a wider view. Your evidence, digits and the padlock are in the pull-out case file.

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Questions

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