In 2006, a military of law enforcement officials surrounded the Banco Rio in Acassuso, Argentina, and negotiated for hours with a daring group of robbers inside.
The criminals took hostages and demanded the police carry them pizza, because the nation watched on stay TV. Snipers perched in timber, able to shoot if wanted.
Lastly, one robber advised the police they have been able to give up. However when legislation enforcement entered the financial institution, there wasn’t a perp to be discovered. They’d vanished and not using a hint, taking with them a reported $20 million in money and valuables from security deposit packing containers.
“We use[d] [a] tunnel, to not break in, however to interrupt out,” says the theft’s mastermind, Fernando Araujo, within the new Netflix documentary “Financial institution Robbers: the Final Nice Heist,” which debuts on Wednesday.
“Nobody [had] ever deliberate to do a heist this fashion.”
The plan
Araujo, an artist and small time pot grower, began concocting the plan in 2003, when he rented a home close to the financial institution and started exploring the sewage tunnels beneath. Impressed partially by the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” he dubbed his scheme the “Donatello Challenge.”
Posing as an structure pupil, he known as the general public works company in Acassuso to get data on how the bottom would possibly deal with tunnels. Then he satisfied Sebastián García Bolster, a neighborhood motorbike mechanic to hitch his group as a civil engineer.
They calculated methods to drill 15 meters diagonally into the financial institution, primarily making their tunnel a triangular hypotenuse between the constructing’s basement and the sewer. Doing so would require some heavy equipment.
“To make a gap the dimensions of a soda bottle [with pickaxes] took one hour. It was unattainable. So we had to usher in a 220 watt generator so we might use an electro pneumatic drill,” Araujo says.
As their plans got here collectively, they discovered extra males to be a part of the heist. Profession criminal Rubén “Beto” de la Torre was recruited as muscle and Luis Mario Vitette Sellanes got here on as properly — he would turn out to be designated police negotiator. They recruited one other man referred solely within the movie as “the Doc” and stated to be each a lawyer and a classy thief.
After years of tinkering, the plan got here into focus. Slightly than going by means of the sewer to exit to native waters, as legislation enforcement would seemingly predict, Araujo’s group would go deeper into town’s bowels.
The crew purchased an previous van and customised it to have a ground hatch so they might park it above a manhole and climb straight into the car with out ever going out onto the road. They recruited a person named Julián Zalloecheverría to be their driver and somebody known as “the child” to function additional muscle.
D-Day
At round 12:38 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 13, 2006, the group of robbers stormed in by means of the entrance door of the financial institution, weapons in hand and able to take hostages. Sellanes went to the highest ground to get the financial institution supervisor, then introduced the person to the basement the place the secure and safety packing containers have been. There, he pressured a safety guard to give up his weapon after which depart the constructing.
Araujo and Beto centered on the financial institution’s floor stage, managing hostages and securing exits.
Police shortly descended upon the financial institution, and Sellanes started pretend negotiations with the cops to get extra time for his accomplices to assemble the loot. He threw on a pretend mustache, yarmulke, and glasses to throw off police and snipers peering by means of the financial institution’s home windows. At 2:30 p.m., he made some extent of releasing two hostages.
In the meantime, Bolster was within the basement utilizing a particular cannon to interrupt open deposit packing containers as shortly as doable.
“I didn’t cease to see what was inside or if it really opened or something,” Bolster says. “Simply breaking, breaking, breaking all of the locks.”
After two hours, they’d cracked open 143 packing containers and it was time to flee. Sellanes advised authorities they have been prepared to surrender.
“Deliver us some pizzas, carry us some soda, we’ll have a little bit meals and give up,” Sellanes recollects telling the negotiators. He knew they'd be out of the constructing by the point forces entered.
The robbers splashed chlorine all through the financial institution to cowl their DNA and tossed random strands of hair round to throw off crime scene investigators. Then they escaped into their tunnels and into the sewer and not using a hint.
There, two small boats, one with a motor awaited them. However the motor wouldn’t begin, so the lads needed to paddle by means of the sewer to succeed in their van 14 blocks away. Araujo laid sprawled out atop the loot in one of many boats to safe it.
They efficiently made it to the van and drove to their secure home. The cops have been none the wiser.
“Immediately, the very first thing I wished to do was activate the TV and ensure they weren’t behind,” Araujo says within the movie. “Right here we have been with the cash so far-off.”
The boys then divided the cash evenly amongst themselves and parted methods.
Sellanes says he drove off with “4 trashbags full of money.”
Authorities have been at first baffled by the escape. They didn’t even notice the gang had tunneled out till a financial institution employee noticed a bit of misplaced furnishings protecting the outlet.
In it, they discovered booby traps and a word from Araujo that learn, in Spanish, “in a wealthy neighborhood, with out weapons or grudges, it’s simply cash and never love.”
It was an image good job, the take was large, the police had no leads and nobody had been injured. Araujo and Co. appeared to have gotten away with the heist of the century and would have the ability to get pleasure from their riches in peace.
One free finish
Then, weeks after the theft, Beto seen one thing amiss.
“I come again [home] in the future and discover my [stash] bag is misplaced,” he says within the movie. “I noticed the stack of cash had dropped, fairly a bit.”
His spouse, Alicia di Tullio, admitted to him that she had taken about $300,000 and a few security deposit loot from Beto with out asking permission.
The 2, who had been collectively 18 years, acquired right into a blowout argument. Beto demanded she carry again what she taken instantly and left the home together with his remaining loot in a huff. Livid, di Tullo known as the police and turned in her husband.
The boys realized their good plan had been thwarted. Sellanes recollects the Doc calling him frantically, saying “De la Torre’s spouse goes to show us all in quickly, she’s asking for every of us to pay her $300,000, if we gained’t she’s gonna give us up.”
Sellanes replied: “Doc, she will be able to go f–ok herself. I’m not giving her a factor, let Beto repair all this together with her and depart me out of it.”
However Beto couldn’t repair what his spouse had executed.
Beto, Bolster, Sellanes, Araujo and Zalloecheverría have been all arrested and charged, with di Tullio serving as a confidential witness.
“She advised us she had data concerning the state of affairs…for the needs of this case, there isn't any proof that permits us to say what occurred between [Beto and Di Tullio],” prosecuting district lawyer Gastón Garbus says within the movie. “I really feel prefer it’s associated to the money and it wasn’t induced from matter of spite over the presence of one other girl.”
Beto confirmed that her motive was cash. “She valued [it] greater than household and that was it, the tragic ending of my story, I consider everybody’s too,” he stated.
In 2010, Beto was sentenced to fifteen years, Araujo was given 14, Zalloecheverría acquired 10 and Bolster acquired 9. Sellanes agreed to a separate, expedited trial the place he was given 14 years for not simply the theft however different miscellaneous crimes he was discovered linked to round that point as properly. The Doc and the child have been by no means caught.
A contented ending for all?
Not one of the males ended up serving the sentences in full and all at the moment are free and celebrated for his or her infamous heist.
“There have been individuals who instantly idolized this and see it as, I don’t know, one thing out of the peculiar,” Araujo says.
Sellanes has amassed over 30,000 Twitter followers, and the gang’s story was immortalized in a 2020 thriller-comedy “The Heist of the Century.”
Araujo says their story has a contented ending.
“Everybody who performed a task on this story gained. Prosecutors superior careers, law enforcement officials turned detectives afterwards and the judges have been acknowledged. The victims’ insurance coverage acquired them greater than they'd,” he says.
Within the documentary, a number of of the lads trace that a lot of the money and valuables they scored was by no means recovered.
“Everyone’s curiosity, it’s nice…the place is [the rest of the loot]? It’s within the Cayman Islands within the, you higher write this down, CBU [account] quantity 24!” Araujo says sarcastically.
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