2 men plead guilty to $2M armoured car robbery in St. Louis

ST. LOUIS — Two men have pleaded guilty to the $2 million robbery of an armoured car, an inside job believed to be one of the biggest cash heists ever in St. Louis, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

Charles Johnson, 34, pleaded guilty Thursday, and Shayne Kier Jones, 30, pleaded guilty Tuesday, to federal conspiracy charges. Both men, from St. Louis, will be sentenced in March.

Jones worked for Dunbar Armored Car Co. and told authorities he was threatened into participating in the robbery.

The crime happened April 4. Jones stopped at a gas station pretending to be lost, the U.S. attorney’s office in St. Louis said. When he got out of the truck, Johnson and another man rushed him and demanded money. Court documents show Jones obliged, throwing bags of money out the back door of the armoured truck to Johnson and the other man.

They put the money in a white car and drove away with more than $2 million, according to court documents. Prosecutors said the money was taken to a home and divided into thirds.

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Johnson and Jones were arrested days later, but more than half of the stolen money remains missing, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office said.

The third suspect has not been arrested.

The heist is believed to be the second-biggest ever in St. Louis. In 2010, $6.4 million was taken in a gunpoint heist from the office of ATM Solutions, a company that serviced and stocked cash dispensers. About half of that money was later recovered. Several people involved in that crime are now in prison.

Jim Salter, The Associated Press