James Burke, also known as Jimmy the Gent, The Big Irishman, and The Irish Guinea (July 5, 1931 – April 13, 1996), was an Irish-American gangster and Lucchese crime family associate who is believed to have organized the Lufthansa heist in 1978 and believed to have orchestrated the murder or murdered many of those involved in the months following. He is the father of small-time mobster and Lufthansa heist suspect, Frankie Burke, Jesse James Burke,...
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James Burke, also known as Jimmy the Gent, The Big Irishman, and The Irish Guinea (July 5, 1931 – April 13, 1996), was an Irish-American gangster and Lucchese crime family associate who is believed to have organized the Lufthansa heist in 1978 and believed to have orchestrated the murder or murdered many of those involved in the months following. He is the father of small-time mobster and Lufthansa heist suspect, Frankie Burke, Jesse James Burke, Catherine Burke and another unidentified daughter. Catherine married Bonanno crime family member Anthony Indelicato in 1992. Jimmy Conway, a character in the movie Goodfellas played by Robert De Niro, is based on Burke.
James Conway was born in Bronx, New York as the illegitimate son to Jane Conway, a prostitute who was an immigrant of Anglo-Irish lineage from Dublin, Ireland. The father of James has never been identified. At age two he was placed in a foster home by his mother, where he spent most of his early years in a Roman Catholic...
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