35 years after the famous Lufthansa heist of 1978 at the John F Kennedy airport, Police arrested five alleged mobsters in a pre-dawn raid in New York early Thursday morning in connection with that famous robbery portrayed in Oscar-winning movie "Goodfellas."

Those arrested in the early morning hours of Thursday morning included 78-year-old Vincent Asaro, a member in the higher ranks of the Bonanno family, he was arrested at his home in Queens. Also arrested was alleged mob Underboss, Thomas Difiore, also known as Tommy D. DiFiore is the top-ranking Bonanno family member not in prison.

Arrested as well were Jerome Asaro, John Rigano and Jack Bonventre.

The Lufthansa case was re-opened in June after an informant revealed the site of a secret burial behind the home of James “Jimmy the Gent” Burke, the mastermind of the $6 million Lufthansa heist. Although Burke was under suspicion for the heist, Burke was never charged with the crime.

Burke would later be convicted of murdering Richard Eaton in February of 1985 and was sentenced to life in prison on that charge. He died in prison of lung cancer in 1996. Burke is suspected of killing over 50 people, including all but three of the robbers in the JFK robbery. He murdered his co-conspirators when many of them asked for more money from the larger-than-expected take from the heist as well as to keep them from informing to authorities.

The Lufthansa heist targetted millions of dollars in currency that was being shipped overseas to Germany as payroll for military servicemen, and currency exchange for tourists there.

The Lufthansa case received a lot of publicity after Nicolas Pileggi’s book “Wiseguy” was published, and even more when the movie, “Goodfellas,” a big screen release, based on the book, hit theatres in 1990. In that blockbuster Martin Scorsese movie, Burke’s charactor, named Jimmy Conway, was played by Robert De Niro.

The arrests made on Thursday are the first real arrests made in the decades-old case. Only one person was ever prosecuted in the case. That person was Lufthansa supervisor Louis Werner. Werner would receive a fifteen year sentence, but became an informer, and only did one year for his part in the crime.

The five men arrested today are scheduled to be arraigned on as-yet unreleased charges in a New York court this afternoon.