Snatched $68m 'not insured'

2005-08-10 19:54

Fortaleza - The nearly $68m (about R435m) stolen in a spectacular tunnelling heist last weekend was not insured, said a bank spokesperson on Wednesday.

The weekend robbery, discovered on Monday, was the biggest bank heist in Brazilian history and second in the world after a 1987 robbery in Knightsbridge, central London, of $72m (about R461m).

A central bank spokesperson said the Brazilian cash "was not insured, because it was already in the bank's vault. That is normal procedure; we only insure money when we have to transport it".

A gang took 3.5 tons worth of 50-real bills and carried the loot unnoticed out the front door of a house in Fortaleza's business district.

Police said the robbers operated from the house, where they created a fictitious gardening company called Grama Sintetica, which allowed them to get rid of the earth they dug without suspicion.

From the house, the thieves - believed to number between 10 and 20 people - dug the four-metre-deep tunnel, passing under Dom Manoel Avenue to reach the floor of the bank's 500-square-metre vault.

Police were investigating how the robbers broke through the vault's one-metre-thick iron and cement floor.

- AFP