By Bianca Fortis
The sound of jackhammers interrupted an otherwise quiet neighborhood in Ozone Park Tuesday morning, where members of the FBI evidence response team had launched an investigation a day earlier to find the remains of a dead mobster.
The FBI is rumored to be searching for a body at the home of the late James “Jimmy the Gent” Burke, a gangster from the Lucchese crime family, famously portrayed by Robert De Niro in “Goodfellas.”
But a representative for the city’s FBI field office could only confirm that the FBI is continuing its search in Ozone Park for evidence as part of an ongoing investigation.
Property records show the home is in the name of Catherine Burke, one of Burke’s daughters.
Two women who entered the house declined to comment.
FBI vehicles lined the street in front of the red brick house, at 81-48 102nd Road, where blue and gray tarps had been positioned to cover the driveway.
A neighbor, Victor Montero, said the presence of the FBI, which included two helicopters, surprised him. He initially thought the scene might be related to terrorists. Montero said he has never seen any unusual activity at the house in the 20 years he has lived there.
Passers-by walking behind the house along Liberty Avenue peeked in through the red fence that blocked the backyard of the house from traffic. FBI investigators wielding shovels and sledgehammers were visible through the fence,
Burke is the suspected mastermind of the 1978 Lufthansa Heist, a robbery at the Kennedy Airport during which more than $5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewelry were stolen. Many of the heist associates, considered witnesses by Burke, were murdered in the months following the robbery.
Burke was convicted of one murder and while serving 20 years to life, died of cancer in Buffalo at the age of 64.
Reach reporter Bianca Fortis by email at bfortis@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4546.
