It was one of essentially the most daring robberies in history.
Throughout the long Canada Day holiday weekend in July 1961, serial criminal Georges Lemay tunneled into the vaults of the Bank of Nova Scotia in Montreal, Canada and raided protected deposit boxes containing money, bonds and jewellery, getting away with an estimated $4 million before disappearing in air.
In “Satellite Boy: The International Manhunt for a Master Thief That Launches the Modern Communication Age” (Counterpoint), writer Andrew Amelinckx tells the story of how one of North America’s most wanted criminals was finally tracked down due to the appearance of recent satellite technology, invented by Harold Rosen, a humble electrical engineer from Latest Orleans.
Amelinckx discovered the story in 2017 while reading Jay Robert Nash’s now out of print Almanac of World Crime, which briefly described the case of Georges Lemay.
“I could not consider no one had written a book about it, so I assumed I might,” Amelinckx tells The Post. “The deeper I got into it, the more fascinating the story became.”
With the means to flee, Lemay made his approach to South Florida, where he lived on a luxury yacht, avoiding capture by a number of international law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, Interpol, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
“Lemay turned his nose up at power, but I believe his charm is that he represented the part of us that wishes to interrupt the foundations and continue to exist our own terms, to hell with the world,” says Amelinckx.
![Satellite Boy: International Manhunt for a Master Thief, Who Launched the Modern Communications Era, by Andrew K. Amelinckx.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/04/satellite-boy-2.jpg?w=678)
“Within the case of Lemay, it doesn’t matter that he was handsome, elegant and lived a high life.”
4 years passed before Lemay was finally caught.
Just just a few hundred miles away, at Cape Canaveral, Harold Rosen built the world’s first business communications satellite, Intelsat 1—or “Early Bird,” because it later got here to be known.
![Serial criminal Georges Lemay stole $4 million from a bank and eluded attention for years.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/04/NYPICHPDPICT000009803560-1.jpg?w=1024)
When Canadian authorities used the brand new technology to publicize their “most wanted” fugitives, Lemay’s picture appeared on TV screens across the continent, prompting a spectator on the Fort Lauderdale, Florida marina to call the police and report Lemay’s presence there.
While “Satellite Boy” depicts Lemay’s cat-and-mouse chase culminating in his capture, it also reveals two men who shared an intense drive for fulfillment, each with amazing intellects.
The difference, says Amelinckx, lies of their motives.
“Rosen desired to bring the world closer along with technology, however the latter was only for himself.
“Georges Lemay just used his intelligence for private gain.”