Hei$t: The Great Robbery of Brazil's Central Bank

Boldness without limits.

Burglars invade the Central Bank's vault in Fortaleza

and steal more than 160 million reais.

The burglars rented a house near the Central Bank.

From there, they dug 80 meters of tunnel until reaching the vault.

A perfectly planned crime.

Initially, when the boss said, "There was a theft at the Central Bank,"

we assumed that an ATM had been broken open.

No. It was a theft of the Central Bank's vault.

They broke into the vault and stole millions from inside.

EXCLUSIVE FOOTAGE

Theft, vault, hole, tunnel…

It's obvious this is not a simple crime.

HEIST OF THE CENTURY IN FORTALEZA

THE LARGEST HEIST IN BRAZIL'S HISTORY

"But is there a lot of money?" He said, "It's like if you go to the beach

and take a spoonful of sand."

"Will there still be a lot of sand left?"

At first, we were in the dark.

The press demanded, "For God's sake, we need answers."

"The days are passing by

and you don't know who stole it, and the money is gone."

He said, "Look, one of the Central Bank robbers."

Everyone knows who committed the robbery.

The only ones who don't know are the police, but he's one of them.

The criminal scene in São Paulo was completely different then, right?

The king of crime was not the drug dealer.

The king of crime was the bank robber.

At the time, I was a fugitive. I didn't have many options. So…

"Let's go to Ceará? Let's go to Ceará. Is it there? Let's go." And then we went.

A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY SERIES

THE CRIME

8:30 A.M.

AUGUST 8TH, 2005

In August 2005, I was the head of DELEPAT,

the Police Department for Crimes Against Property.

I was in shooting training, about 9 a.m.

when the superintendent of the Federal Police called me

informing me that there had been a robbery at the Central Bank. A theft.

It was the first time we were called to investigate

the Central Bank.

It was so secure there'd never been any incidents of theft.

We thought it was trivial, even silly.

When we arrived, there were only a few employees in the vault.

And then we found this hole…

which had a tunnel that gave access to the outside of the bank.

CENTRAL BANK

I tell ya. I couldn't get in.

With my physical build,

I couldn't go through the hole,

because it was very, very small.

The first question we asked

the Central Bank employees was, "How much money did they take?"

And they answered, "Around 100 million."

The first amount was calculated in kilograms.

It was three and a half tons.

And actually, when they counted, it came to 164 million and something.

They only entered the used-bills side.

The new ones, that could be tracked because of the serial number,

weren't taken.

There were ten or twelve police officers there

when we arrived.

We already looked at the hole.

We kept looking at each other thinking,

"What are we going to do now?"

"Should we go in there or surround the whole building?"

Someone had to do something.

And I volunteered to get into the hole as quickly as possible.

EXCLUSIVE FOOTAGE

The hole was big enough for a thin person to get through.

The fatter people had to be left out.

Eneas is such a cop guy. He's a cop even when he sleeps.

He's a full-time cop.

So,

he got in.

He got in because he wanted to. Eneas is fearless.

He arrived, he saw the hole and was ready to go down in there.

But when I saw it, I said, "I'm not going down there."

He said, "I'm going down." I said, "No, you dunno what's down there."

There could be a bomb. But he went anyway.

In 27 years with the police,

I think going through that tunnel was one of those times I thought,

"Dude, don't go or you can-- you will --die!"

Not "can," but, "you will."

So, you're underground, and you're going through a tunnel

and you dunno where it's going,

or who's still there.

It's a really bad feeling.

The fact that the tunnel still had the lights and fans on

made me both calm and nervous.

because I wondered f they were still carrying the money

or if they would still be there.

I crawled about for almost an hour.

It was an hour that lasted ten hours for me.

As I moved through the hole, a thousand things came to mind.

like bumping into someone or falling into a trap.

The whole time, I was careful to crawl and not put my hand down

without first observing where I was putting it.

Because, usually, they make these traps with a very thin nylon string

that you pass dismantling a grenade that explodes.

I suspected I'd gotten to the point where they started

because there was absolutely nothing left.

Neither to the right nor the left,

There was only up.

And I saw a lot of garbage, a lot of construction garbage.

Hoses, ladders, a platform.

So I said, "No, it can only go upwards now."

As I opened the trapdoor, I stuck my head out

my eyes peering out, trying to have 180 degrees of vision.

-Because I thought they were still there. -

When I looked in all directions, the house appeared empty.

And it was well protected from the light.

When I fully entered it, I saw several mattresses

in all parts of the house. On the door, on the windows, everywhere in the house.

There was a white powder, which the Federal Police experts

later discovered was used to remove fingerprints.

I saw clothes.

And I also found a small bag of coins.

It was the only money we found in the house.

To find out where I was, I tried to check the rooms.

And then I got to a door or a window and put my head out,

but the house had a very high wall, right?

So, I took advantage of it and went out to a kind of area

where there were dozens of sandbags and the sand they took out of the hole.

And then, I climbed a small pile of sandbags and reached the roof.

The Central Bank was on my left,

about 70 to 80 meters away on the other side of the avenue.

And then I communicated with the people who'd stayed at the Central Bank

and told them to come to that part of the street now called,

the "starting point."

25 DE MARÇO STREET

NO PARKING GARAGE

The tunnel began in the backyard

of this rented house in downtown Fortaleza.

The information is that a synthetic grass company operated

here as a front for at least three months.

Boldness without limits.

Burglars invade the Central Bank's vault in Fortaleza

and steal more than 160 million reais.

The robbery is the biggest in the history of Brazil.

It's a scenario worthy of the best thrillers

and it happened this weekend in Brazil.

You've heard the expression "dig your way out of debt."

These guys took it seriously.

It was a big-time heist in Fortaleza, Brazil.

UNBELIEVABLE! THE BIGGEST ROBBERY IN BRAZIL

CENTRAL BANK HEIST THE BIGGEST ROBBERY IN BRAZIL

HEIST COVERED THE WORLD OVER

THE HEIST OF THE CENTURY IN DETAIL

O POVO NEWSROOM FORTALEZA

#ITWILLWORKOUT O POVO

On that day,

I was getting ready to come to the newspaper

and suddenly I got a call from the "City" editor at the time,

who was not my editor for special feature articles,

telling me to be aware that possibly in the afternoon,

the special feature editors…

LUIZ HENRIQUE CAMPOS JOURNALIST

…would cover something and that they were still investigating how it had occurred.

The first information he gave when he called me indicated that

there had been a robbery in the Central Bank of Fortaleza,

which was at the time was, and I think it still is,

the safest bank in Fortaleza.

CENTRAL BANK DID NOT INSURE MONEY

HOW THE HEIST HAPPENED

Until then, the information they had was that they'd entered through a tunnel.

It was a totally surreal thing, right?

EXCLUSIVE FOOTAGE

The first thing I felt, which I realized

as I arrived in a few minutes, taking a quick look at what was going on,

was a mixture… I'll use that term,

but disregard it in the sense that you think it's too extravagant.

A mixture of admiration and surprise.

NEWSPAPER HEADQUARTERS O ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO

I was in the newsroom, in the early afternoon,

when, talking to a policeman, I think from here in São Paulo…

MARCELO GODOY JOURNALIST

…he warned me that there had been a theft in Fortaleza.