The real-life Money Heist: Incredible true story of bank thieves’ ‘heist of the century’ with underground tunnels, modified vehicles and genius plan to fool police, just like hit Netflix show (but with an even more amazing final twist!)
When police discovered a 240-yard tunnel that led to the vault of a bank in Argentina last month, it sparked a memory for the nation of the infamous 2006 bank robbery known as ‘The Heist of the Century’ almost two decades ago.
It was just after midday on Friday, January 13, 2006, when police were called to reports of a bank robbery in Acassuso, an affluent suburb north of Buenos Aires.
Once they arrived at Banco Rio, one of Argentina’s largest financial institutions, they surrounded the building and watched as the bank’s lone security guard nervously stumbled out the door.
There were hostages inside, he told police. Minutes later, another guard emerged, and shortly after that, a masked thief in a grey suit appeared, clutching onto one of the hostages.
Reenactment on Netflix documentary ‘Bank Robbers: The Last Great Heist’ of how a group of thieves in Argentina managed to escape through an underground tunnel network after carrying out a bank robbery dubbed ‘the heist of the century’
One of the hostages of a bank robbery in Buenos Aires, is escorted by police agents after her release 13 January 2006
A policeman carries boxes of pizzas to be taken to a bank during a hostage-taking robbery in Buenos Aires, 13 January 2006
He had come to negotiate with police, who had swarmed the bank and its surrounding streets, whilst snipers patiently waited atop trees and neighbouring buildings, ready to shoot the criminals at any moment.
They had learned that there were five thieves inside the bank along with 23 hostages. But the thugs weren’t ready to give up.
And as for police, they knew they had to be wary.
The evolving heist had struck a chord with law enforcement, as just six years ago, in the town of Ramallo, a heist of a similar style had unfolded, after three armed men burst into a bank and used hostages as human shields.
This resulted in two captives and a robber being killed as a devastating shoot-out between the robbers and police unfolded on live television.
The tragic incident had sparked a national scandal, and as camera crews and news stations rolled in to document the Banco Rio heist, police knew that one wrong move could result in disaster.
For more than six hours, cops precariously negotiated with the man in the grey suit. He reassured them that the hostages were uninjured and were being treated well.
Eventually the robber surprised police when he told them they were ready to concede.
Buenos Aires’ elite troops surround a bank in the Argentine capital during a hostage-taking robbery, 13 January 2006
Hostages (C) of a bank robbery in Buenos Aires, are escorted by police agents after their release 13 January 2006. Twenty-three people were held hostage for around eight hours by a group of armed raiders in the exclusive locality of Acassuso in northern Buenos Aires, Argentina
Note left by the gang of robbers after they fled Banco Rio, reading: ‘In a neighbourhood of rich people, without weapons or grudges, it’s only money and no love’
‘Bring us some pizzas, bring us some soda, we’ll have a little food and surrender,’ he told police.
Little did they know that the robbers had a genius plan to get away that would mark them as the most legendary robbers in Argentina’s history.
In the time that it took the pizza order to reach the bank, the band, who had looted an estimate of 19 million dollars, managed to escape.
Once the pizzas were delivered, the oblivious police officers failed to make contact with the negotiator.
For more than three hours, police leaders and city officials nervously fretted over what to do as their attempts to reach the criminals continued to fail.
Finally, it was decided that a team of special forces would enter the bank, and at 7pm, armed agents burst inside the bank.
But to their surprise, the thieves had vanished, leaving nothing but the unharmed hostages and a note that read: ‘In a neighbourhood of rich people, without weapons or grudges, it’s only money and no love’.
They soon discovered that the robbers had managed to break into and clean out 143 safes holding millions of dollars.
Image shows one of the robbers on January 13, 2006 inside a tunnel leading to Banco Rio on the day of the infamous heist
A sketch of the tunnel system used by the thieves to carry out their epic heist in Buenos Aires’ suburbs, 2006
The 2006 Buenos Aires heist has inspired several television series and films, such as Spanish Netflix series ‘Money Heist’
Police swept every corner and crevice of the bank, but there was no sign left of them. The windows were all intact, and the two exits to the building had been patrolled by police since the siege had begun. So how had the robbers managed to escape?
It turns out that the criminal gang had been planning their epic escape for several months, as the criminals built an underground tunnel network in order to access the bank, and managed to escape on inflatable boats through storm drains.
They had brought on engineers and mechanics to do this. One of them had even posed as an architecture student so that he could call the public works agency to get insider information on how the ground might handle tunnels.
They also bought an old van and customized it to have a floor hatch so that they could park it above a manhole less than a mile away from the bank.
Through here, they would climb directly into the vehicle without ever going out onto the street, and most importantly, without being seen by police.
Their bizarre plan had succeeded. They split the money between themselves and on their way they went.
They were untouchable – they had just gotten away with the greatest heist of the century – a tale that has continued to captivate Argentinians years after the Banco Rio siege unfolded.
Baffled police officers only discovered that they had tunnelled themselves out of the bank a few days later when a worker spotted a hole beneath a piece of furniture.
Sebastian Garcia Bolster in Netflix documentary ‘Bank Robbers: The Last Great Heist’
Fernando Araujo was the mastermind behind the Banco Rio heist. Picture shows Araujo being interviewed for Netflix documentary ‘Bank Robbers: The Last Great Heist’ in which he details the day his plan came into action
Luis Mario Viette, who was also involved in the Banco Rio heist in 2006. Here, he is pictured when being interviewed for Netflix documentary ‘Bank Robbers: The Last Great Heist’
Rubén Alberto De La Torre (pictured) is one of the masterminds of the ‘robbery of the century’ committed in January 2006 when he and four other men cleared 147 safety deposit boxes
For weeks, Argentines who had sat glued to their TVs as they watched the saga unfold were left mesmerised by the Banco Rio mystery, and were all left wondering who the genius masterminds behind it were.
Along the years, unbelievable details of the iconic heist have emerged, from how the thieves first thought of the plan, to how they managed to dig up the tunnel and epically trick police.
It all began with the eccentric Fernando Araujo a martial arts expert and cannabis cultivator.
The 2006 heist had been inspired by the Ramallo heist, and decided to tell his longtime friend Sebastian Garcia Bolster about his idea to rob a bank, and to then vanish through a hole.
While Bolster had agreed that it was a genius plan, he didn’t take Araujo very seriously – his unorthodox friend was known to smoke a lot of weed.
But a couple years later, Araujo came back to his friend with more concrete plans.
The suburbs of Buenos Aires have an intricate storm tunnel system that runs beneath the streets. Araujo concluded that all he needed to do was find one that would get him near the bank, from where he could dig upward.
Bolster, an engineer, reluctantly agreed to participate, and before they knew it, their legendary plan began to take shape. They brought in veteran bank robbers Luis Mario Vitette Sellanes, who would come on as the police negotiator and Ruben Alberto de la Torre, who went by the name Beto.
Beto’s wife Alicia Di Tullio turned her husband in after she found out he was planning a getaway with his lover
They recruited another man, Julian Zalloechevarria.
After years of careful deliberation, their scheme came into action on that Friday in January.
But their perfect plan began to fall apart when five weeks later, on February 18, Beto and his mistress were pulled over by police and detained.
But how had he been discovered? Finding the culprits to the heist seemed almost impossible to police.
Before disappearing into the depths of the underground tunnels, the robbers had poured litres and litres of chlorine to get rid of DNA samples, and even scattered mounds of hair belonging to other people to throw off police.
But clearly there was a loose string in their intricate plan that blew his cover.
It turns out Beto had made the careless mistake of being unfaithful to his wife Alicia Di Tullio, who turned him in when she discovered he was allegedly planning a romantic getaway to Paraguay with his over.
As a result, Alicia was able to assist police in identifying most of the Banco Rio gang, after having seen them in her garage working with her husband as they prepped their master plan.
The Money Heist series traces two long-prepared heists led by the Professor one on the Royal Mint of Spain, and one on the Bank of Spain, told from the perspective of one of the robbers
The Spanish crime drama ‘Money Heist’ has received several awards including the International Emmy Award for Best Drama Series
One by one, each of the delinquents were arrested.
Di Tullio has rarely spoken about her involvement in their arrests, but in her most recent interview in 2015, she told journalist Rodolfo Palacios that she had intended to hurt only Beto, and had asked for the forgiveness of Araujo and Vitette.
In 2010, Beto was sentenced to 15 years, Araujo was given 14, while Zalloecheverria got 10 and Bolster nine.
Meanwhile, Sellanes agreed to a separate, expedited trial where he was given 14 years for not just the robbery but other miscellaneous crimes he was found connected to around that time as well.
None of the men, however, ended up serving the sentences in full and all are now free.
The heist is still as legendary today as it was 18 years ago, and the great bank robbery endures as a modern-day Robin Hood saga, immortalising a gang of quirky thieves who inspired movies and television shows, such as Spanish Netflix crime series ‘Money Heist’ and the 2020 film The Heist of the Century.
It has even inspired criminals to carry out a similar type of heist, or at least try to.
Last month, in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, Argentinian police managed to foil what could have been one of the largest money heists in the country’s recent history after they uncovered a 240-yard tunnel that led to the vault of a bank.
But it was a humble delivery worker who helped thwart the robbery in San Isidro after he spotted a rogue metallic spike poking out of the cobbled road, prompting him to call the police.
Officers discovered that the rod was part of an intricate tunnel network that ran from an empty warehouse all the way to the safe deposit room of a Banco Macro branch in San Isidro.
Police officers arrived at the scene and called in excavators, which drilled through a layer of cobblestones and cement in order to reach the underground system.
It is believed that the rod was used by the criminals underground to get a sense of where they were.
The underground tunnel system was a sophisticated and time-consuming engineering job that police believe took months to engineer.
In the depths of the tunnels, police discovered bags filled with waste, building materials, mattresses, and even a kitchen.
The men who robbed the Banco Rio back in 2006 are now all free to brag about their master plan and have even monetised off of it.
In 2022, the criminals starred in the Netflix documentary Bank Robbers: The Last Great Heist, in which they share their personal accounts of how their arduous operation unfolded.