Second largest bank robbery in history takes place in Fortaleza, Brazil

luiz

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This is serious movie material. A true genial crime. Here's the wiki article:

Banco Central robbery at Fortaleza
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from Banco Central Fortaleza robbery)
This article documents a current event.
Information may change rapidly as the event progresses.

The Banco Central robbery at Fortaleza was a bank robbery of the Banco Central in Fortaleza, a city in northeastern Brazil. It is the country's largest, and one of the world's largest known robberies.

On the weekend of August 6 and August 7, 2005 an unknown gang of robbers tunneled into the Banco Central bank (Brazilian Central Bank) in Fortaleza and removed five containers of 50-real notes, with an estimated value of 156 million reals ($68m USD). The robbers managed to evade or disable the bank's internal alarms and sensors; the robbery remained undiscovered until the bank opened for business on the morning of Monday, August 8.

The gang of robbers rented an empty property in the centre of the city three months earlier, and then tunneled 78 m (255 ft) beneath two city blocks to a position beneath the bank. The robbers disguised their activities by establishing the front of the building as a company making artificial turf. Neighbors, who estimated that the gang comprised of between six and ten men, described how they had seen van-loads of soil being removed daily, but understood this to be a normal activity of the business. The tunnel, being roughly (70 cm)² and running 4 metres beneath the surface, was well-constructed: it was lined with wood and plastic and had its own lighting system.

On the final weekend, the gang broke through 1.10 metres of reinforced concrete to enter the bank vault. The bank notes weighed approximately 3.5 tonnes and would have required a considerable amount of time and effort to remove.

The newspaper Estado de Sao Paulo reported that this robbery and another last year in Brasilia may have been masterminded by convicted bank robber Moises Teixeira da Silva, who escaped his 25-year prison sentence in 2001 along with 100 other inmates by tunneling out of prison. He is considered a probable suspect by Brazilian police.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banco_Central_Fortaleza_robbery

Their tunnel even had air conditioning!
Also, those particular bills are non-traceable, so the robbers will almost certainly enjoy their new fortune in absolute peace.
 
$68m USD...:eek:...that is alot of money
 
madviking said:
PS- whats the largest robbery?

Very likely the Knightsbridge Security Deposit robbery, which was of USD 70 millions, so only marginally superior to this one.

Edit: Actually, considering that currenty there is a trend of the dollar losing value face the real, this robbery could well become the largest in history in a few months. Since the dollar closed today at R$ 2.29, today the robbery of 156 million reais would translate to 68.12 millions USD.
 
Nice one. Don't get me wrong, it's wrong to steal, but I must applaud their brilliant execution of such a smart plan.
 
What a brilliant plan. Seems like its straight out of some movie.
 
Amazing. It's not nearly as much as Kleptocrats have managed to steal, though (Mobutu stole $4 Billion, e.g.).
 
I feel horrible for the people who actual had their money stolen
 
Perfection said:
Wow!

Well, if this crew would like to make some serious cash...

:mischief:

I'm in!

Ten Characters
 
Azadre said:
I feel horrible for the people who actual had their money stolen

Since it was the a Central Bank building, all brazilias got robbed :sad:
Oh well, at least they did it in an enterteinaning way, unlike some politicians :lol:
 
rmsharpe said:
Mobutu had 30 years.
Abacha only had a few years and stole about the same amount. Still, I'm not saying that what the thieves accomplished wasn't amazing (and deplorable at the same time, of course). I'm just emphasizing that it's the second largest bank robbery in history, and not the largest robbery.
 
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