7. The Banco Central Burglary
The holder of the Guinness World Record for the biggest bank heist is this 2005 Brazilian theft. The haul was R$ 164,755,150 (about $71.6 million), carried off in 50-Real notes, which weighed about 3.5 tons altogether. The method was a classic bank-robbing one – the robbers tunneled under the bank from a building 78 meters away and somehow got through a meter of re-enforced concrete to get into the vault and get away with the money. After that, it all got a bit nasty, with the body of suspect Luis Fernando Ribeiro turning up two months after the robbery, in an apparently related murder. Several other suspects were kidnapped, some by police officers (Brazil is not above a bit of immoral policing). Only around R$9 million of the money has ever been recovered, prompting rumors of a police cover-up. Another one that will run and run.
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