The ‘biggest bank heist in the world’ was foiled after police after arrested a gang who spent four months tunnelling into the Bank of Brazil’s vault to steal £240 million.
Sixteen men have been arrested after officers discovered the 500 metre-long tunnel running beneath the streets in southern Sao Paulo.
Police in the city had been monitoring the gang, but were forced to move in on Wednesday September 27, when the tunnel reached completion.
If successful, the heist would have been the biggest bank robbery in history, according to local news reports.
The gang did not gain access to the safe, but did make it into the shell of the vault
It appears they had estimated to get away with $317 million.
Lead investigator Fábio Pinheiro Lopes said on Monday: “The gang’s investment was in the range of 4 million real, they said, each of the participants put in 200,000 real and their estimate was to take 1 billion real.
It would have been the biggest assault in the world.” but “almost everyone” was arrested, ‘lopes said.
Source: Mirror
