Character played by Robert De Niro in Goodfellas. was an
American gangster and Lucchese crime family associate who is believed to have organized the
Lufthansa heist in 1978 and also believed to have orchestrated the murder of (or murdered) many of those involved in the months following. He is the father of small-time mobster and Lufthansa heist suspect, Frankie Burke, as well as of Jesse James Burke, Catherine Burke (who married
Bonanno crime family member Anthony Indelicato in 1992), and another unidentified daughter.
Burke inspired the character "Jimmy 'The Gent' Conway", the primary antagonist in the 1990 movie GoodFellas. He died of lung cancer in prison in 1996.