MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Record bank heist in Brazil: 65 million US dollars

A group of robbers stole a record 65.2 million US dollars by tunnelling into the vault of a regional branch of the Brazilian Central Bank, admitted officials in Rio do Janeiro.

Apparently over the course of several months the thieves dug a tunnel from a house some 200 meters away and then last weekend finally broke through and made off with the cash from Central Bank branch in the northern city of Fortaleza.

The massive theft was only discovered Monday morning.

Although the bank has not announced how much money is missing, the Federal Police in Ceara state - of which Fortaleza is the capital ? said the haul totalled an estimated 150 million Reales approximately 65.2 million US dollars.

The money apparently was in relatively small bills, some of which were to be withdrawn from circulation, which makes it virtually impossible to trace it.

Authorities acknowledge that the largest bank heist on record in Brazil happened July 1999 when about 20 gunmen invaded a Banco del Estado de Sao Paulo branch and, after subduing 15 guards, fled with just under the equivalent of 17 million US dollars.

Central Bank authorities said that the regional Fortaleza office had modern alarm systems and the vault concrete and steel-reinforced walls two meters thick.

The police said that the house from which the tunnel was dug had been rented three months ago by a group who said they were intending to manufacture artificial turf.

Neighbours reported that between six and ten people worked at the house but no customers ever came to call.

Besides every day a loaded van was driven away from the site, but they never suspected that it was filled with dug-up earth from the tunnel.