Gangster rivaling Al Capone arranged infamous Charlotte heist on this day 88 years ago

Decades before a motley crew of inexperienced robbers pulled off the notorious $17 million heist at Loomis Fargo that became the plot for the movie “Masterminds,” Charlotte was the site of a lesser-known holdup orchestrated by an out-of-town gangster — Roger “The Terrible” Touhy.

Feuding with Al Capone and in desperate need of cash to bankroll his defense for an upcoming kidnapping trial, Touhy sent four of his men to an up-and-coming financial hub in the South to rob a mail truck on Nov. 15, 1933.

The rest, as they say, is history.

If the Loomis Fargo robbery was a heist of amateur proportions, Touhy’s gang was anything but. According to the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, the Chicago gangster was Capone’s central competition in selling bootleg alcohol during Prohibition.

Capone wanted a cut of Touhy’s successful beer brewing business, the History Channel reported, but Touhy wasn’t interested in sharing. So when Capone’s men showed up to force a deal, Touhy reportedly “shouted orders to his fictional gang over the telephone” to trick Capone into thinking he had a crew to back him up.

According to the History Channel, the infamous gangster later kidnapped Touhy’s business partner and returned him for ransom only to have him killed in 1931 — thereby intensifying the feud.

By 1933, Capone’s men had framed Touhy for kidnapping, Our State reported. Touhy was awaiting trial when the plot to rob a mail truck in Charlotte took shape.

A mob hit and a mail truck

The robbery occurred in broad daylight on Third Street, according to the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. Touhy wasn’t there, but four of his men were. The quartet pulled out of an alleyway in a “brand-new Buick” to ambush a mail truck as it drove down the road, according to Charlotte Magazine.

One of the men was wielding a machine gun, the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources said, and the others quickly disarmed the driver before clipping the lock on the truck with wire cutters.

Within two minutes, the crew had tossed out the mail clerk and stolen about $100,000 in cash and bank notes, according to the state agency. That’s about $2 million in today’s dollars.

Charlotte had about 80,000 residents at the time and “few if any connections to organized crime,” Our State reported.

But Frank Littlejohn, Charlotte’s chief of detectives, had received a tip about a potential mob hit in the days leading up to the heist, Charlotte Five reported. He found the getaway car outside city limits and tracked down a woman who rented a room to two of the men — one of whom carried a violin case.

Littlejohn suspected the violin case was actually carrying the Tommy gun, C5 reported, and he later found the gang’s second hideout in Charlotte. It was there that Littlejohn reportedly pieced together 27 scraps of shredded paper that turned out to be a rent receipt from Chicago.

“Touhy hadn’t figured on Littlejohn’s prowess and determination,” reporter Harry Hoover wrote for C5. “Two weeks after the crime, Littlejohn had rounded up most of Touhy’s gang.”

‘I’ve been expecting it’

The detective used witness descriptions and “fingerprints lifted from beer bottles found in the second hideout” to identify Touhy’s goons, Our State reported. They included Basil “The Owl” Banghart, Ludwig “Dutch” Schmidt, Isaac A. Costner and Charles “Ice” Connors.

Only three of them ever made it to trial.

Banghart, Schmidt and Costner were sentenced to more than 30 years in prison, according to C5. Connors, meanwhile, was found dead in an alley “riddled with machine gun slugs and wrapped in barbed wire.”

According to Our State, Littejohn told The Charlotte Observer in a 1957 interview that Connors was found clutching a penny.

“That’s the underworld sign for betrayal,” Littlejohn reportedly told the Observer. “Maybe Ice was just dumb, but he put the police on the mob’s trail and that was enough to kill him.”

Touhy was never charged in connection with the Charlotte heist. But he was sentenced in 1934 to 99 years in prison on the kidnapping charges, according to the FBI.

Touhy and Banghart escaped prison together in October 1942 with a crew of five others. The FBI tracked them down one by one, and Touhy and Banghart were arrested together at an apartment building a few months after the jail break.

The FBI said Banghart had become “the undisputed leader of this mob.” Touhy, meanwhile, was described as the “very ghost of the once feared ‘Black Roger’” with his black hair dyed a “reddish-blond.”

“Clad in flaming red satin pajamas, he was trembling and silent as he backed out of the apartment holding his hands over his head,” federal agents said.

According to the History Channel, Touhy’s kidnapping conviction was eventually overturned and he was released from prison in 1959. He was gunned down three weeks later — but it was rumored he knew what was coming.

“I’ve been expecting it,” Touhy reportedly said before his death, according to the History Channel. “The bastards never forget.”

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