Armed gang carry out £40m bank heist

An armed gang posing as maintenance workers have carried out an audacious bank robbery reminiscent of a Hollywood heist film in Brazil, seizing cash, jewellery and watches valued at around £40m.

The men are understood to have escaped with diamonds "the size of marbles", pure gold ingots, necklaces studded with dozens of jewels, a Rolex watch collection worth more than a luxury apartment and large amounts of euros.

The items were held in 138 private safes in the basement of a branch of the Itau bank in Sao Paulo belonging to 120 VIP clients.

A team of 12 men defeated a high-security system at the bank which includes cameras, movement sensors, guards, grating, a steel door and an alarm system in a carefully planned attack with echoes of films such as Heat and Ocean's Eleven.

Posing as maintenance workers in grey uniforms, they were able to spend 10 hours inside the bank after gaining entry just before midnight before making their escape without even an alarm going off.

According to the Brazilian weekly news magazine Veja, their haul of cash and valuables is estimated to be worth at least 100m Brazilian reais (£36.8m), making it the biggest raid on private safes in the country's history.

The raid began when two of the gang arrived at the bank on Avenida Paulista, in the heart of the city, in a van and informed a car park security guard that they were part of a team due to replace some furniture within the bank.

The bank was undergoing reforms and the guards had already been warned that there would be works carried out in the early hours of that night, Saturday August 27 leading into Sunday.

Once inside the building the men took the lift to the ground floor and confronted the only armed guard on duty inside, pointing pistols at him.

They forced him to call the bank's security centre and give a security code to request that the alarm system should be switched off for maintenance reasons.

The guard was then made to open the doors to the main road and 10 more robbers in uniforms entered the bank, while another five of the gang kept watch for any police outside.

Once inside, the gang set to work with tools including crowbars, drills, sledgehammers, electro-pneumatic hammers, electric saws and a magnetic drill that can penetrate steel.

As well as jewellery and money, their haul included a collection of 110 Rolex watches and a 2.2lb gold bar.

Police reportedly believe it is highly likely that some of the gang were also involved in the country's biggest ever bank robbery in 2005 in the northern city of Fortaleza, in which the robbers escaped with 164m reais in cash.

A team of 125 were involved in digging a tunnel of more than 650ft from a nearby house to get into the bank on that occasion – and according to the magazine five of the men are currently fugitives from the law while another 81, including money launderers, are free.

(Published by The Telegraph - September 14, 2011)