This way to £240m
Gang spends 4 months digging 550 yd tunnel to raid bank... only to be caught inches from cash
THEY spent four months painstakingly digging their way from their rented home to the vault of Brazil’s national bank.
After edging 550 yards in the underground tunnel, the gang were closing in on the biggest bank robbery in history.
But within inches of their prize, they were caught red-handed by police.
The gang were planning to steal about £240million from the vault of a branch of the Bank of Brazil in southern Sao Paulo.
Their intended haul compares with just £31million in the Brink’s Mat raid and £62million in Britain’s biggest cash robbery, at a Securitas depot in Kent in 2006.
Sao Paulo police made 16 arrests after the discovery of the tunnel – following a three-month investigation into the attempted heist.
The group dug by hand, loading the soil into sacks and carrying it through a fork in the tunnel to an underground storm water drain, it was reported.
To enter the tunnel, gang members descended a 6ft 6in ladder from one of the rooms in the rented house.
The cavity was about 5ft high and was reinforced with iron bars and wood planks, and was even wired with lights.
The walls were lined with plastic binbags to reduce the dust, house local was media reportedly reported. filled The with food, water, special clothing and digging tools. Police are probing whether the gang members had the assistance of an engineer when building the tunnel, according to The New Agora newspaper.
Detectives revealed that although the gang had not yet tunnelled into the vault, they had made it to the outer shell.
Investigator Fabio Pinheiro Lopes decided and arrest said: to almost do ‘That’s the everyone. operation why We we arrested the leaders.’ In order to carry out the heist, those involved handed over thousands of pounds, raising a total of nearly £1million for the job. Police say the leader of the gang was a 35-year-old woman implicated in an attempted robbery of a security van in Paraguay. A court ruled the group detention. be to The held another case in bears Brazilian pre- trial similarities tunnel robbery 12 years ago when thieves took about £50million. For that tunnel, diggers worked in shifts from 8pm until 4am, taking a break on weekends. Three gang members involved in that attempt were involved in two prison escapes using tunnels equipped with ventilation and lighting.