Police Officers in Sao Paulo, Brazil, have foiled the world’s biggest
bank robbery after discovering a well constructed 500-metre tunnel,
complete with lighting, ventilation and rail tracks, leading from a
rented house to the vaults of the Bank of Brazil.
Like seriously? How did they do it?
The thieves hoped to steal up to £250m, police said, and planned to
carry out the raid this weekend but luck failed them. Several
bullet-proof cars, suspected of having been prepared as getaway
vehicles, have been impounded as part of the police operation.
“This would have been the biggest bank robbery in the world,” chief investigator Fabio Pinheiro Lopes told the Guardian.
“They are an extremely dangerous and organised gang with a long history,
including some violent crimes like homicide. If you look at their ages
most are above 35 – well above the age of your average Brazilian
criminal,” he added.
The gang are understood to have invested at least £750,000 to fund the
construction of the tunnel and other logistics. Among those arrested is a
lady who used a false name to rent the house where the tunnel began.
Suspicions were aroused when police in the north of the city were
alerted to the construction of an unusually luxurious house. It turned
out to be the gang’s temporary headquarters. Undercover officers rented a
neighbouring building and monitored communications and movements.
Police say the gang’s leader was Alceu Ceu Gomes Nogueira, 35. He is
also suspected of having been involved in an attack on cash deposits in
Paraguay in April, when nearly £10 million was stolen and a police
officer was killed in a long gun battle.
It is believed that Nogueira is heavily involved with a notorious gang
called the PCC (First Command of the Capital). It is believed that he
commanded a prison riot in 2006 at the behest of the PCC, the same year
the gang mounted a series of bloody attacks which brought São Paulo to
its knees.
Another alleged accomplice is Marcos Paulo Chini, 44. He was serving a
jail sentence in the northern state of Maranhao after being convicted
for his part in a bank robbery in 2015. In May this year he disappeared
while he was temporarily released for a Mother’s Day visit.
12 of the 14 people arrested have previous convictions, including
murder, robbery, drug trafficking, and illegal possession of weapons.
The tunnel was high enough for a person to stand inside, and supported
with metal and wooden beams. Rail tracks had been laid to transport the
banknotes. Police said that they had also seized construction materials
and workers’ clothes that were scattered throughout the area. Frozen
food to provide for a large team of labourers was discovered.
Had the plot succeeded, it would have dwarfed Brazil’s previous biggest
heist, when thieves made off with 3.5 tonnes of cash, worth £35 million,
from a regional office of the Brazilian central bank in the city of
Fortaleza in 2005. On that occasion, a tunnel was also built from a
rented home near by.
