Thieves tunneled into a bank in northeastern Brazil and stole $68 million (€55 million), the biggest bank heist in the nation's history, police said today.
"It's something you see in the movies. ... They dug a 200-meter tunnel that goes underneath two (city) blocks. They've been digging for three months," police investigator Francisco Queiroga said.
The thieves broke into a branch of the central bank in the northeastern state of Ceara over the weekend and removed 156 million reais. The theft was not discovered until this morning because the bank was closed.
"The tunnel was dug right underneath the vault," MR Queiroga said. "We've never heard of so much money being stolen from a bank in Brazil."
Federal police in Ceara said it was the biggest known heist in Brazil and that between six and 10 people were suspected of doing the job.
The theft exceeds estimated €38 million taken in the robbery of the Northern Bank in Belfast last December. In an operation planned with military precision, a gang of up to 20 individuals held hostage the families of two senior bank officials while they set about stealing the huge sum of money from the vaults of the bank's headquarters, which were swollen with cash in the week before Christmas.
The Brazilian heist was also more than the amount stolen by Britain's "Great Train Robber" Ronnie Biggs, who fled to Brazil and lived in the country for many years.
He and 11 other gang members robbed a Glasgow-to-London mail train in 1963 and made off with £2.6 million - some £30 million (€43 million) in today's money.
