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While O'Keefe told his story, the agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation rounded up Tony Pino and five other members of the gang (two, including O'Keefe, were already in jail, one was dead of natural causes, and the remaining two were still at large). O'Keefe's story was no surprise to the FBI and police. For five years they have been frustratingly familiar with many of the details of the crime, and all but one of the eleven gang members (Fugitive James Ignatius Flaherty, 44, a bartender, burglar and escape artist) have been primary suspects. In 1953 a federal grand jury refused to indict the ten for lack of legally admissible evidence. A year later Joseph F. Dineen, 57, a veteran Boston police reporter, wrote under the guise of "fiction" a magazine article and a book giving a highly accurate account of the crime and the criminals. Said one investigator last week: "We had all the pieces to the puzzle for a long time and knew pretty well how they went together, but we didn't have anything to make them stay together until O'Keefe talked."
After listening to Specs O'Keefe, a Suffolk County grand jury speedily indicted the entire gang on 148 counts. The indictments came just four days before the Massachusetts statute of limitations expired.* Still notably missing, though, was one important item of evidence. Not a penny of the missing millions has been recovered.
*Last year the Massachusetts legislature extended the statute of limitations on robbery from six to nine years, largely as a result of the Brink's case. But a great many lawyers doubted that the extension would have applied to the Brink's robbery, since it occurred before the extension.