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[tense music playing]
A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY
[Araujo] Morals,
are the behaviors that society judges by.
Ethics,
are the behaviors that your conscience judges.
Each one of us, depending on where and when we're born, draws a line and says,
"From there to here is good, from there to here is bad."
And things start to get crazy when you move very close to that line.
[gentle music playing]
[interviewer] So, is that what led you to rob a bank?
Why did you do it?
"Why did I rob a bank."
Ooh, that's a question that I've asked myself many times,
and I believe the most reasonable explanation is,
the transcendence of death.
At some point in human history,
we realized life was too finite.
It all goes by so fast, and we don't leave anything behind.
Therefore, I believe that the transcendence of death
can come in one of two ways:
With children or with art.
That's what transcends death,
a book you write, or a painting,
or a pyramid.
An artistic heist, you know?
I truly think that this aspect, of the transcendence of death,
realizing the finite nature of life,
is another motivation of mine that pushed me to do this.
[narrator] And now, the news.
[upbeat rock music plays]
[male reporter] Four criminals heavily armed,
entered the bank with the intention of robbing it.
[female reporter] Tensions are high, over in San Isidro,
where a hostage situation is unfolding.
The Falcon group intervened, and the area is surrounded.
We're there live.
[man] The "Falcon" group didn't know that the safe deposit boxes were underground?
Oh, I have something to say about that.
[host 1] All the hostages have been released,
but no one has been arrested yet.
[host 2] They looted 143 safe deposit boxes.
[host 3] Ninety-five million dollars.
[Osvaldo] These may be really smart guys, but no matter how long it takes,
they are going to have a beautiful story to tell their cellmates in jail.
[host 6] The most spectacular bank robbery in all of Argentina's criminal history.
[host 7] Some people are calling it, "The robbery of the century."
[reporter] A police officer who got inside told me, "They just evaporated."
[clack]
-[interviewer] Alright, Fernan-- -This again? What do you want to hear?
FERNANDO ARAUJO THE ARTIST
2003? Yes, it was 2003.
Back then, I was the happiest man on Earth.
If you took a survey of everyone on Earth, I was the happiest.
I had found…
[phone chimes]
…a vocation.
I wanted to investigate "the arts."
[atmospheric music playing]
[Araujo] For this, all I needed was a studio of about 50 square meters.
A place that is conditioned to be able to exacerbate my senses.
At that time, it was plastic arts.
martial arts,
and cannabis arts.
I was writing a book about the benefits of cannabis and indoor cultivation.
It was a whole sabbatical year,
full of experimentation and-- and madness.
[grunts]
I was in states where I wasn't sure if it was day or night.
I was painting, and writing the indoor cultivation book.
Control it.
Well, I had found my vocation, and I loved that.
What I couldn't have imagined back then,
is that after those indoor plants finished developing,
I was going to have a very, very important revelation.
[atmospheric music continues]
[insects chirping]
[Araujo] I…
I decided to rob a bank.
I didn't know how yet,
but something I did know was, there had to be some art in it.
And the idea began to
take hold of me, to the point that I said,
"The paintings can all go to hell."
And the only thing I did from there on, 24/7, was think,
"How am I gonna rob a bank?"
[alarm beeping]
[Vitette] My name is Luis Mario Vitette Sellanes.
I'm Uruguayan and 65-years-old.
I was born into a good family.
In a very good financial position.
I define myself as a scrutinizer.
[interviewer] What is a scrutinizer?
A scrutinizer knows a little about jewels, a little bit about locks,
a little about art, a little bit of just about everything.
Although my first crime had nothing to do with robbery,
That's how I got to know jail, you know, the real jail.
And anyone who knows what jail's like,
knows when you get out, you're not the same.
You learn of all kinds of crimes in there and it turns you into a criminal.
Rufi! Rufián!
Charlotte! [blows kisses]
One day I was out on a temporary visit and said, "I'm never going back."
So I flew to the Republic of Argentina.
-[beep] -[indistinct automated voice]
What does an escaped prisoner do when he goes to a strange country?
He links up with criminals.
LUIS MARIO VITETTE THE ACTOR
[engine revving]
[Araujo] Maybe we all at some point,
think about robbing a bank, or something like that, right?
We see it in movies, but this idea really started to take hold of me.
I had to share it with someone.
So I shared it with my psychologist.
The first thing I said to Jorge was, "I'm gonna rob a bank!"
I remember, "Why a bank?"
Well, if not a bank, it would've been a casino.
They're everywhere, but a casino?
I'm not against capitalism, okay?
For me, it's a cool system, and it certainly works.
The only thing I wanted, was a small piece of the pie.
I wasn't gonna start a bank, no.
I was going to rob one, which is better according to Brecht.
[engine revving]
At that time, he thought I was just delusional from all the pot,
making him listen to all these ideas.
"Okay," he said. "Okay, it's all good. Let's just leave it there."
So first, I started looking for a bank.
I live in Acassuso.
That's where I was born.
Where I grew up.
There was a bank at Libertador and Perú, and I said, "This is the bank."
The Rio Bank in Acassuso.
[tense music plays]
PERÚ - LIBERTADOR AVENUE
[tires screeching]
[atmospheric music playing]
Well, my name is Rubén De la Torre. They call me Beto.
I was born in Constitución.
I went to a catholic school.
I went 'til I was 12, I was even an altar boy
and I helped at mass and everything, but as soon as I left the church,
I'd go out and get into mischief with friends, who were also quite,
quite like me. [chuckles]
It all started as an adventure.
Later it became a habit and then after that, I started stealing.
Stole some cars, and well, as soon as they caught me, I went to Devoto Prison,
and I got together with dangerous people who'd done armed robberies,
and even committed some assaults, and… commando-style hits.
I got on the bus with them, you might say.
It becomes second nature, theft and crime.
It was like… filling a void.
I don't know what, but I was lacking something.
BETO DE LA TORRE THE THUG
You can rob a bank,
either when it's open or after it's closed.
[blues music playing]
When it's open, it means you gotta go in.
-With weapons. -[robber] Put your hands behind your head
and keep 'em there.
And to try to get inside the bank vault.
-Now! -[Araujo] Something that is impossible.
The employees, all of the private security,
they all have a button.
-[alarm blaring] -[indistinct]
[Araujo] Where automatically, after a few minutes,
you're surrounded, and you can't get anything.
Not even a penny.
And using weapons wasn't going to suit my style,
or what I was trying to achieve.
-Something artistic, without violence. -[gunshot]
[screaming]
So obviously I went with, uh, the option when the bank was closed.
And when it's closed, the best way in and out,
is through a hole.
And this was the idea I developed.
With this type of idea, I mean, you can't gather your friends and say,
"Hey, man, do you want to do this?" [chuckles] No.
You have to find the right bunch of guys.
What I think my motto is, "intelligence over gunpowder."
[narrator] Sebastián García Bolster.
[suspenseful music playing]
I am Sebastián García Bolster and I don't know why, but,
they call me The Engineer.
SEBASTIÁN GARCÍA BOLSTER THE ENGINEER
[Sebastián] I lived my whole life in Martínez,
in a typical, middle-class family.
I would see a device, and I'd start thinking of ways
to get a better performance, or create more energy, more power.
[engine revving]
I studied in high school to be an electronic technician.
After graduation, I started as an engineer, then I quit.
I started a motorcycle shop,
Very quickly, the motorcycle workshop evolved
until it ended up being, exclusively and purely a workshop for jet skis only.
Fernando went to the same school as me, a Tech School in San Isidro
and he was about a year ahead of me.
And we became friends, we'd go- on vacations together…
Fernando dropped this idea on my door.
Although I… I never stole. Never, ever.
Uh…
But robbing a bank, though, I was in.
[woman] Return our savings! I worked my whole life!
My family always suffered because of the banks.
[clamoring]
Stealing is bad, but robbing a bank that took advantage of so many people, not bad.
He tells me about the idea, and my reaction wasn't, "No, you can't."
No, no, no. "Yes, whatever you need", uh, mechanically or, you know, whatever it is.
"Count on me to do it, but I don't take any risks, so if it's not perfect, though,
I don't get involved."
[insects chirping]
[somber music playing]
[Araujo] I was going to rent a house four blocks away from there.
I was going to dig a tunnel
and I was going to get into the basement of that bank.
Because down there is where they kept the bank vault.
But, it wasn't that easy.
What if the tunnel collapsed?
Because, come on, let's be real here.
I've never, up until this point,
had to dig a big hole other than to plant marijuana.
On top of this,
I realized that there are motion sensors once you get inside the vault.
I spent the next few months figuring out the mechanics of it.
And I designed suits that wouldn't set off the sensors.
It worked.
That's where the idea of Mr. Caterpillar was born.
But it wasn't getting past the motion sensor system that was the tough part.
It was actually the vault itself.
This madness that I was sure I was going to solve was,
was really complicated, and thus I went into a decline.
For a moment there, I thought, "It can't be done. It can't be done."
[reflective music playing]
I was… overwhelmed.
I had invested a lot of time, knowledge, and money in preparation for the job.
[reflective music continues]
And well, it wasn't working.
It wasn't working.
I couldn't figure it out.
[gunshot echoing]
[muffled thudding]
[tense music builds]
A sense of hope had now been resurrected and a new idea had been born.
All of a sudden, it's 3:00 in the morning.
Immediately I go out to find a café.
to search the Internet and see if anyone had ever come up with this kind of idea.
It was much more audacious.
A high-flying performance.
TAKING HOSTAGES
[Araujo] And the idea was very simple.
Mixing the two methodologies,
when the bank is open, as well as when the bank is closed.
We enter and go straight to the counter so it looks like a simple robbery.
Then wait until we're surrounded by the police.
And then, we use the tunnel not to break in, but to break out.
[engine revving]
No one has ever planned to do a heist this way.
And when you are avant-garde in something,
you have a much greater possibility of success,
because no one is ever prepared for the novelty.
I was very happy before,
when I discovered that the arts and 50 square meters did well for me.
And this was a product of that creativity.
[Sebastián] Fernando would come, and, he'd tell me,
"Man, I thought such-and-such about doing this "
Each problem we had, we had to evaluate in various… various possible ways.
From his point of view, and from my point of view.
As if it were from a movie, like, you know,
an idea for something we'd make in the future.
"Alright, we'll do it like this, and this."
The first thing I do, then, is,
try to find out what kind of dirt did the ground north of Acassuso has.
So then, I began to investigate, and I recalled
that some workers were making a tunnel for drainage in Olivos.
I go and say to them, "Hi, how are you? I'm an architecture student."
I say, "One question, could it collapse or cave in?"
The man said,
"No, no, my friend, it is much more solid the deeper down that you go."
"Oh, okay".
When I left, I noticed some metal plates the construction site built to the street.
The next day, on Perú street, I see another one this small.
And then another.
I couldn't believe it.
These were manholes, same ones I'd seen at the construction site in Olivos.
Then there are manholes, every ten meters,
that run down Perú street.
Which is the street the bank's on.
The manholes indicated that underground there's already a tunnel for drainage.
And suddenly, I find the exit of the tunnel
just ten blocks from the bank.
I walk in about 100 meters.
And I find a big, round sewer drain
about six meters in diameter,
projecting deep, into the bowels of the city.
An incredible sight.
["Feeling Good" by Avicii playing]
♪ Birds flying high ♪
♪ You know how I feel ♪
♪ Sun in the sky ♪
♪ You know how I feel ♪
♪ Breeze driftin''on by ♪
♪ You know how I feel ♪
♪ It's a new dawn ♪
♪ It's a new day ♪
♪ It's a new life… ♪
[Araujo] And there began a new stage called…
♪ …for me, yeah… ♪
…the Donatello Project.
♪ And I'm feeling good ♪
Donatello, not referring to the Renaissance sculptor and artist,
but the Ninja Turtle.
They were down in the sewers,
they did martial arts, and they were green like marijuana.
If you walk 20 minutes straight into the tunnel, it's too dark.
and I turn and ask, "Where are you?",
how would I know where I am? We had to measure.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Araujo] One, two,
three, four…
Eleven, twelve…
24, 25…
You know what?
I never would have known that I was going to study the cotangent of something
until I decided to rob a bank. It's incredible.
It's like all the different subjects that I had studied before in my life
suddenly fit together, you know?
The cotangent gave me the…
the 69 degrees and at the same time, gave us the hypotenuse, like 15 meters.
DRAIN PIPE 69 DEGREES
TUNNEL, 15 METERS
UPPER CHAMBER BASEMENT
[Sebastián] This entire first stage
was done by Fernando and me.
We began to make the first chamber with pickaxes and set up lights.
For example, to make a hole about the size of a soda bottle,
a two-liter, took one hour.
It was impossible, so we had to bring in a 220-watt generator,
so we could use a pneumatic drill.
LOWER CHAMBER 2 METERS
DRAIN PIPE
[Sebastián] It wasn't long before we ran out of money.
We couldn't physically pull it off ourselves,
so we needed another to help us move, both financially and manually, you know.
So then the second person we brought on is "The Doc."
Once again, I don't want any heroes here.
THE DOC
There was an associate that he knew, who was involved in criminal activities,
in the super gangs of the 1990s.
And they were violent guys, went in with weapons…
They had more firepower than their own police station had.
I already knew The Doc, and he seemed like a real smart guy.
He was a lawyer and so, uh, that was reassuring.
Something's missing, so I told him, "Let's find another person."
And that's when The Doc brought in Beto de la Torre.
[atmospheric music playing]
[Beto] I frequently talked with uh, The Doc.
Then one day, he meets me at a gas station.
He says, "I'm going to introduce you to a friend of mine."
That's when he introduces me to "Facha," Fernando.
The man is of shocking-- of strength.
He's accustomed to handling things with violence,
with the deflagration of gunpowder.
"Look, I don't have much money for that stuff."
He said, "No, but I have a truck."
"I'll sell it and we'll buy all the materials we need."
[Araujo] So all of these things were moving fast,
but not as fast as my anxiety.
I was on this 24/7, and the other men…
The Doc was on trial,
and Sebastián had problems with his wife.
And Beto, Beto was suffering from gout.
His legs swelled up and he could barely walk.
I needed to have someone else, whose availability aligned with mine.
[Mario] Stealing in Argentina was really easy.
I hung out with all kinds of people,
and ended up with a Spider-Men gang.
So we would climb buildings.
We'd scale up to the 18th, 20th floor,
and look for where people kept their valuables.
Remember, when they contacted me,
I was breaking into safes where me and the others
would split up to half a million dollars.
So, there I was, walking down Libertad,
exceptionally well-dressed, as always,
and someone calls out, "Hello, Marito! How are you?", "Oh! The Doc!"
The first thing he asked me is, "Do you have any money?"
"Yes, of course," I said. "Then we need to talk "
"I have a very important job."
"I've got the job of my life."
"Let me tell you, Marito." And I said "Stop."
"If you're in, I'm in. Nothing more to say."
[atmospheric music playing]
[Araujo] Well, I remember that day we were gathered.
Sebastián, and there was Beto, and The Doc brought Marito.
And so I meet this guy.
He's short, five-foot-four, his chest all puffed up like all short guys.
"Hello, amigo!" Pah! "How are you doing?"
He walks in the studio and begins looking around.
The studio wasn't at all what I imagined.
Oil paintings on easels.
This one was a shit-hole.
Then they introduce me to the guy with the idea, this Araujo guy.
And he takes me into another room and goes, "Look at what I grow."
He pulls back a curtain and there's lights and, I don't know,
just this mountain of marijuana.
So Marito had that kind of personality.
You know, like those, uh, like one of those snake charmers or something.
So I didn't know how to feel yet.
I mean, I thought it was a very cordial introduction with Beto,
who I'd later know as De la Torre.
And I got that, uh, you know those little goosebumps on my skin,
from that guy who was named Sebastián, who I later learned was García-Bolster,
and that's…
You know when something tells you, "Be careful"?
And one day I get a call and it's Araujo.
He said, "Can you come over? Bring comfortable clothes."
"We might be getting a little dirty."
I said, "Where are we going, my God? Am I on time? Am I on time?"
But curiosity
killed the cat.
The first time down here was truly terrifying.
Imagine this place. We would walk through excrement, cans, trash…
There were pipes…
By pipes, you know, connections.
Illegal ones, from houses.
[Araujo] After walking for a kilometer, we get to the first chamber
that we previously had made.
I go, "Have a look. Do you see again?"
And this man starts to look everywhere.
I actually saw a ring, with a huge circumference, a huge pipe.
At least 10 meters, full of all these metal plates.
"Yes, what do you see?"
"I can't see anything. What should I see? I want to go."
I open the plate. There was already a chamber.
I said, "Look, here we have the Baywatch torpedoes."
"Baywatch torpedoes?", he says. "So then where are the girls, huh?"
"No, no, Baywatch torpedoes."
I say, "Mario, if by chance, it rains, the water level is going to rise
and the only thing we can do to save our lives,
is grab a Baywatch torpedo, float along with the current,
and pray to whatever God that you want, pray to get out of here alive."
I was confused.
I was kind of confused, too.
I wasn't about to ask, either, because I knew this wasn't the job for me.
He puts the screws back in and we retrace our path.
Then when we approached the mouth of the tunnel,
I mean, I couldn't get all that stuff off.
I tried splashing a little water from the drain and it made it worse.
My clothes, man. It was horrendous.
We got into the truck,
then we drove up a steep slope,
this endless slope, until we got to the end and,
he said, "Turn here."
"Do you see where we were underneath?"
"Yeah, I see."
"Well, if we make a tunnel properly,
it will lead us directly into the bank's vault underground."
Now I liked it!
I finally knew the helping hand I needed was here.
Because this guy was going to be available 24/7 for this too.
[reflecting music playing]
[Araujo] At that point, Mario and I got to work.
For months we were climbing up and down ladders,
using the pneumatic drill,
and drinking a lot of mate.
[Beto] We left the cars outside, next to the pipe…
We tied ropes and lowered ourselves into the sewers.
[Mario] A couple of us went down while someone stayed up above as lookout.
[Araujo] The forensic police were 30 meters away
and we didn't know if someone had seen us from a window, while we were going down.
[Beto] We had a major setback getting materials,
such as wicks, um, grinding discs, lamps,
cable… everything we needed.
[Mario] We had to fix the generator, buy all of the tools.
-How much is this worth? -500.
Five hundred with batteries included?
[Beto] And then shoes, and helmets, and life jackets for everyone.
[Sebastián] I had my life during the day and at night, well,
if you ask, "Did you steal?", I'd say, "No, I worked." This was a job.
[Beto] With all the afternoon departures
and not returning until the next day becoming routine,
my ex-wife, Alicia, suspected that Mario and I went out partying,
but we were actually making the tunnel.
Although sometimes we went out. [chuckles]
[chuckling]
[Araujo] All in all, we were going in and out for about a year, maybe more.
[Mario] We still didn't have money.
We still didn't have an ego.
It was us.
If a problem arose, we would all solve it together.
[Araujo] I knew that after 15 meters, we had to find the bank.
We were close.
-And suddenly… -[thwack]
The wall was different.
It felt like a different density.
Suddenly it was harder and was a thrill, y'know?
But, was it the bank wall or were the calculations wrong?
Maybe I didn't measure the bicycle wheel correctly.
What if it's the basement wall of the neighbor's house next door?
What if on D-Day I open the hole,
and instead I find the neighbor on the toilet staring right back at us?
Well, to achieve greater precision, I made a two-meter wick.
So where the tunnel ended,
we dug up right before hitting the sidewalk.
"Yeah, well, this is my MacGyver."
The man solved it for 50 pesos.
He got the stuff half-price too, so it would have been 100.
In a normal tunnel robbery,
you have all weekend to open the safe deposit boxes.
But here we needed to open them as quickly as possible.
So Fernando tells me, "I want a tool like the guys of construction have
that cuts sheet metal for the--"
And I said, "Yeah, well that's hydraulic. Alright, let's see what we can design."
We looked for a standard mini hydraulic unit.
and, depending on the capacity of that specific unit,
my designs for the cylinder, the piston, for example, would change a lot.
[Araujo] And so we assembled the device.
[Sebastián] The back part was telescopic so I could regulate the… the distance.
[dog barking in distance]
[Araujo] With that device, we were gonna be in the clear.
I mean, we knew that in seven seconds, we could open a box
and nobody would hear a thing.
And that's how we created the Power Cannon.
[atmospheric music playing]
We all knew that we were going down the tunnel, through the sewer,
with the loot.
Now, where do we go from there?
The initial, primary plan was to just make our way out by the river, you know?
But that's basically what the police would think
and the moment that they discovered how we escaped,
that's exactly where they would go.
So obviously, this is where I say, "You have to go the other way."
[Sebastián] The other direction was to our advantage,
because there were a hundred ways to get out.
So while scoping the scene, we found the best place.
Fourteen blocks from the bank.
It was near a corner where we could then park the van
pierce the bottom of it and go through directly,
without stepping on to the street, where everyone could see us.
Walking while we were inside the tunnel was… it was difficult,
because everything that we had to carry was really heavy.
So then, we had the idea to raise the water level,
so we could float the gear down the tunnel.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Mario] So then we made the dam.
A lot of iron, a lot of rope, a lot of wood,
a lot of polyurethane to make it waterproof.
"FRONT VIEW" 6 METERS
[Mario] We all left the tunnel and a huge storm came along.
[thunderclap]
After the storm, 10 or 15 days later,
we went to the dam to check on it and it was missing.
The storm had carried it out of the tunnel.
I said, "Stop. No. That's it. We've got to walk away."
"We can all take advantage of this. Enough already."
I was done, but suddenly I said, "No, let's build it again."
"Because when they see that we had a dam, and rubber boats,
it's going to be terrible."
[delicate piano music playing]
The focus of studying, now shifted from
how to break into a vault or how to dig a tunnel,
to studying the psychology of the Falcon Group.
Including, finding a manual that was, let's say,
the bible of protocols for hostage scenarios.
And listening to the police radio frequency.
[police siren in the distance]
So, I was beginning to understand the timing, the methodology,
and the things they were going to do for when, inevitably,
the bank calls and says, "They're robbing us."
For me, getting to know the enemy,
that is almost always the key to winning the war.
[Mario] We needed to get us a specific van
so that we could cut out a hole right there on the floor, in the middle,
Cost about 6,000 bucks, I think.
And Beto de la Torre took it to a house that he has in Wilde.
We decided to modify the van by cutting out a part of the floor
so we could pass everything right through.
And we met up to work and right there was his wife, and well,
I was like, "What is she doing here?"
[Mario] We all started looking at each other.
We wanted to know why this lady showed up here.
"No, everything's fine. What could she…?" Pfft.
Well, that was it.
That was the time that he introduced us to Alicia Di Tullio.
ALICIA DI TULLIO THE WIFE
But she didn't even know what my name was,
because I never even introduced myself or anything, but…
but I was there.
We need someone to drive the van for us.
"El Paisano." Zalloechevarría. A man of the law.
[Mario] Then we added "The Kid".
"When you're there, on D-Day,
all you have to do is point the guns,
and do what we tell you." "Yeah!" Imagine that.
[tense music playing]
[thunderclap in distance]
[Araujo] I spent 500 days thinking about this heist.
I didn't do anything else.
The first day, I already knew how to get the money out of there.
But, nevertheless, on the second day, I reviewed my plan.
And on the third day as well.
How many times do we review for success?
I came up with the plan in September 2004.
Do you know what I honestly thought?
That by early 2005 we have it done.
Wrong.
I never thought that it would be so difficult
and that it would take more than a year.
MR. CATERPILLAR 1 - MR. CATERPILLAR 2 MR. CATERPILLAR 3
SCANZIANI TAILOR SHOP
BRIDES - QUINCEAÑERAS -GODMOTHERS LADIES - GENTLEMEN - CHILDREN
[Mario] I was so eager to go in, even if it rained, it didn't matter.
[Beto] At that moment, we were only worrying about one thing.
When this whole hostage thing goes off,
somebody might realize that we are actually escaping through the sewers.
They could block our exit and then, bye, we're not going anywhere.
[Mario] I wasn't really very focused that day.
What I was, was determined.
[Araujo] When the details of the heist were revealed,
we were going to make history.
It was going to be the talk of the summer.
[clocks ticking]
[atmospheric music playing]
The heist will be on Friday, the 13th of January.
Anyone superstitious?
[determined music playing]
Very well.
JANUARY 13TH, 2006 D-DAY
[Mario] I got up at 7:00 in the morning.
I dressed neatly, as always. Put on my shoes, my shirt, my tie…
I went to get The Kid.
And we headed to the site for D-Day.
I remember that night.
I was there, and on a big desk there was
everything that I had to bring set out, so we could be totally disinfected
and wipe the fingerprints.
Let's think about and review the positions.
First, right at 9:00 in the morning,
Sebastián is going to go down the drain.
I walked to the dam and uh, when I got there,
I got in the dinghy and started the motor.
I verified that everything was in good condition,
And I stood next to the tunnel that went up to the bank,
and, uh I waited until they gave me the okay.
The Doc,
and Beto,
you will be walking inside.
[Beto] And Alicia went with me to the place.
She dropped me at the bank
and left, she left the car where I told her to leave it.
My own car.
Next step, El Paisa goes
and takes his position at the escape sewer,
at Tres Sargentos and Libertad.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Mario] I parked.
Went walking with The Kid for a block or two.
We met up at the car, it was a Ford Escort that was waiting for us.
We spoke for a while, all very well-dressed.
Me in my classic three-piece suit.
As we were passing by, we saw Marito's car parked with our other colleague.
"Hello, hello, how are you guys?"
[suspenseful music continues]
[Araujo] I'm going to arrive here, in this vehicle.
I'm going to leave it with the hazards on.
Some tire nails in the back seat, so later when the Falcon group gets there,
it's gonna be clear that it's going to be the car we use to get away.
[Walter] That January 13th, we went in, I checked that everything's okay.
[Walter] The alarms, the security cameras,
and that is what I would hand over to the local police station.
WALTER SERRANO THE GUARD
All that time passed pretty quickly for me and I was still very tired.
To be honest, I think I even fell asleep for a bit.
On the way there, very slowly, very carefully,
I put a layer of specialized glue on everyone's fingertips,
so that we would be able to cover up all of our fingerprints.
We eventually get to the bank's garage.
We got out very calmly.
When we got to the door to make our way in,
the bank's security starts to signal,
saying that every day at noon, the employees go to lunch,
and that the door is closed.
So The Kid and I pick up the pace.
We went up the ramp,
And then, we go to the main door and the two of us walk in essentially
right behind The Doc and Beto.
My attention is drawn to a person who's, uh, who's wearing a white smock.
I zoomed in the camera, the one facing the front of the bank.
You can see, as this person starts to walk,
you can see there's a gun tucked at his waist.
[suspenseful music continues]
[Beto] I went in, showed the gun.
Be still. Go. Let's go.
There were people waiting in line, so I went…
-Everyone quiet. -…over the security guard, restrained him.
I said, "Alright, this is a robbery. Everyone on the floor. Let's go."
Let's go! On the floor! This is a robbery!
"Look at the floor, and you won't have any problems."
"Everything will be fine if you do as we tell you."
ESTELA MARIS THE CUSTOMER
-Down on the floor. -[Walter] I see a person wearing a shirt
that's salmon or pink,
that's holding a weapon, wielding it.
-Move. Move. -[Walter] So I sound the alarm
I send out the alert that they are robbing the bank.
First floor, Marito and The Kid will take it.
[The Kid] Eyes down!
[Leandro] When you start at the bank,
just in case these things happen, you get some training courses.
What they tell you in the training is that the MO is quick robberies.
They last a minute and a half, two minutes, three minutes.
They're fast.
I was on the floor when I remembered, so I started counting.
LEANDRO THE BANK EMPLOYEE
[suspenseful music rising]
[suspenseful music builds]
[Beto] And I see a person entering and heading to the ATM
with a hat and a jacket, so I run out and I catch him,
and it was Fernando.
I didn't recognize him because I hadn't seen what he was wearing.
[suspenseful music continues]
[Mario] The Kid and I made our way up to the first floor in two seconds.
Typical operation.
"Everyone on the floor, this is a robbery."
Moments later, I jumped over the glass
and I landed in the teller's station.
"The money, the money! Come on, come on, come on."
I'll have dispatch in my ear.
I will listen to make sure that I know
the minute when the local police get to the scene.
At that moment, we are going to start.
That's Step Number One of the plan.
"Cuckoo."
First thing I'll do is take a hostage.
Wait for the first officer to arrive.
Then I'm going to pretend I want to run away from the bank with him.
[police sirens blaring]
[Araujo] Once I step outside and they order me to freeze,
I'm going to go back in.
And this misdirection is what is going to keep them from thinking
that we'll escape through a tunnel, 'cause we tried to escape out the door.
Once the "Cuckoo" plan is done, next we will lock the main bank door.
That completes Stage Number Two.
And that's when I heard the sirens going off out front.
And so I, uh…
I started questioning everything, because
if this is one of those quick robberies, how does it end?
CHRONICLE - LAST MINUTE
[reporter, in Spanish] Last minute.
BANK ROBBERY IN SAN ISIDRO
[reporter] Bank robbery in San Isidro.
[tense music playing]
[Araujo] Then we move on to Stage Number Three.
which is to take out the guard in the basement.
He is the one communicating with the outside.
At no point can we let him see or hear anything going on in the vault.
[Beto] Then we grabbed the manager and went to the bunker.
It was all in a matter of seconds.
It sounds like it was a lot happening, but it was all in a matter of seconds.
Come on, get out, come on! Come on! Let's go! Hurry!
While upstairs we hear them telling the guard in the bunker to get out.
Hey, that's enough!
[Walter] He comes up to me and says, "Stay calm."
"Just give yourself up". I said, "I'm not giving up just yet."
And under no circumstance would he open that door for us.
In case he doesn't want to come out,
we're going to black out his windows.
And then one of us here will drive him crazy
by banging on the door.
Let's go, come out, let's go.
The one in the smock gets a little nervous,
and he, uh, takes the hair of the chief of operations,
and pushes her against the glass of the bunker door.
I said, "Listen to me, pal."
"I just got released from Sierra Chica
and I won't go back there, so don't overcomplicate it."
"You have my word, all right? Thief's honor."
"And I will release you immediately."
"Come out and you have my word I won't kill you," he said.
And the chief told him, "Don't go, if you do, they'll kill you."
That was real ugly.
And, well…
Because that's a guy you work with every day, he's an amazing guy.
What if he gets shot?
Get out of that room right now or else!
The Chief of Operations starts crying, you know, having a nervous breakdown,
tells me to, uh, surrender 'cause she hasn't seen her granddaughter.
They're messing with your peers, your friends, understand?
They threaten to kill one of us, or one of the others.
It's infuriating. It's really a helpless feeling.
Come on, let's go!
Do it, yes. Get out!
Speaking to the person in the gray suit, I say,
"I'm gonna surrender."
"Just take it easy, don't touch the hostages."
"It's all I ask of you, don't touch the hostages."
The guard opened the door.
He went to the table,
put down his pistol and then he put down the telephone next to him.
When I go out, I put up both my hands.
This man, he doesn't frisk me like a newbie would.
He frisked me like the kind of person who knew exactly what he was doing.
I grabbed his hands, we went up the stairs and I took him to the door,
For appearances, I put the 9 mm gun to his back
I took out the magazine, and ejected the chamber shell
to ensure that the pistol wouldn't accidentally go off.
"Go away".
"What?", "Go away". We opened the door.
And he left. We released him. We released the policeman.
I began to question,
"Who are they? Who are the guys in this gang?"
Who did you call?
[Mario] And Sergeant Serrano was in disbelief
that we just let him walk right on out that front door.
When I approached the chief outside, I look at the bank at the upstairs window,
I see this person in a gray suit like this waving a phone in the air.
When he shows the phone, I say, "Gustavo, the phone's mine."
He says, "How do you know?" "It has a logo."
"That logo was glued on by one of my daughters."
"That phone's mine. You can call it, it's mine."
[suspenseful music continues]
[Mario] At first, it was going to be two people in charge of the negotiation.
The Doc and me.
But because of my personality,
my way with words,
my theater background and my ability to deal with people,
The Doc said, "No, no. Marito has to be the sole negotiator."
[phone ringing]
[phone ringing grows louder]
[phone ringing]
[Mario] So, it's done.
[phone ringing]
A fake mustache, a yarmulke, some glasses, and a hood.
[phone ringing]
[Mario] And in my role as negotiator…
[phone ringing]
…journalists began to call me
[phone continues ringing]
"The man in the gray suit."
[suspenseful music builds and fades]
[phone ringing]
-[phone ringing] -[click]
Hello.
Yes.
No, ma'am, I'm not Walter Serrano.
Ah, but I've already released your husband, ma'am. It's okay.
Yes, ma'am, I'm one of the bank robbers, stay calm.
Just calm down, please, ma'am.
I'm going to call you back.
Try to calm down.
I need this line to stay open, please.
I immediately held the phone up to the bank's front window,
So this lieutenant would know to call me.
I said to the guy, "Listen,
I got a call from Mrs. Walter Serrano,
so please tell Walter to call her, because she's desperate."
Back to our reporter,
live at the hostage situation and bank robbery in San Isidro.
[reporter, in Spanish] Libertadores Avenue is blocked for three blocks…
You can't be here, go back.
…and this has restricted the work of the press even more.
We've been placed a block and a half away from the epicenter of the action.
The next step is to close the parking lot barrier gate,
then block it with the car.
If the police enters the parking lot, then we won't be successful.
Why? 'Cause then we can't get to the car to get the Power Cannon out.
[tense music playing]
[Sebastián] After 12:30, uh, I feel them start to beep me.
And they say, uh, "Open it."
[thud]
[Sebastián] I hit it, and I can feel on the other side things begin to move,
because I ended up hitting the backside of a piece of furniture.
So they couldn't find where it was, the hole that I had dug out.
[thudding]
-[thud] -[crack]
It's important we see the face of Sebastián through that hole, because…
that's our only escape plan.
[tense music continues]
Then I took position to break the ones that I knew would be much easier.
By easier I mean, the ones with the least distance between the fulcrum and the lock.
[gentle thwacking]
The schedule was more or less calculated
to be able to open 400 boxes in only two short hours.
[whirring]
[reporter, in Spanish] We're unaware of the kidnappers' demands
to free the hostages and surrender.
There's a stream of patrol cars and officers
but no solution to this issue is in sight.
[police sirens blaring]
[Mario] We were watching a screen, a television without audio,
you know, like TVs in banks, and all the media was already there.
And at that moment, I took a peek out the window
and I see the one who had the radio looking at me.
But then he looks to the side.
It's clear that he's looking at someone.
And he looked back at me, and looked at the radio and looked at the side.
And I said, "What's going on?"
Then I realized… what this was.
He told me, "Here's the person that is going to negotiate with you."
"Who is it?" "It's that one with the beard."
[tense music playing]
[gunshots]
[Sileo] Miguel Ángel Sileo.
I was a major with Falcon Special Forces of the Buenos Aires police.
I was a negotiator and a member of the tactical team.
MIGUEL SILEO THE NEGOTIATOR
[Sileo] We parked our cars as usual.
And they briefed us about what happened.
They give me the phone number of one of the guys inside the bank.
I took cover behind a vehicle some kind of truck,
I was with my partner Casio Segura, who covered me like a shield.
Then I made the call.
And he began to explain everything that happened,
that they had come to do a quick robbery that went wrong, they were trapped, well.
They didn't want to hurt anybody but they didn't want to go back to jail.
Look, buddy, I've come from doing 15 years in Sierra Chica,
So let's make it nice and short, let's make it easy.
The negotiator now knows that 'cause of my profession,
he knows that I'm a serious thief, 'cause I told him already
that I did time in Sierra Chica.
More than just what he said, I paid a lot of attention,
not just me, but all negotiators, to the non-verbal part, the body language.
This person was sitting down and he had his legs crossed.
And that just didn't add up.
His body language didn't match what he was saying or what was going on at that time.
Normally, in a hostage situation, there's a lot of stress, people screaming,
lots of adrenaline, they insult us…
Let me tell you something. Listen to me.
You take care of your response team,
and I'll take care of the situation in here, okay?
But I kept saying, "Release someone who's a bit nervous, one of the victims, okay?"
Keep in mind that I got rid of the security guard.
I already let Walter Serrano go,
so that was a gesture of my goodwill. Don't ask for more hostages.
Understand?
[clack echoing]
He turned off his phone, we all stared at each other,
and my boss said, "Buy some time, Sileo."
It was the same thing I wanted, time, you know?
Time to open everything.
[whirring]
I didn't stop to see what was inside, or if it actually opened, or anything.
I was moving on to the second row already.
I was on it, just breaking, breaking, breaking all the locks.
Well, while I was down here, breaking all the boxes,
I saw a woman from the bank, you know?
And she's yelling, uh, "What are you doing?"
Uh, I looked back at her. Obviously I had, uh, a mask on.
And Fernando says to her, "You don't give the orders here anymore."
"I'm the one giving the orders now."
And they left, but I was like, "Oh. Busted. They got me."
[suspenseful music playing]
[Mario] We had a lot of hostages.
I found out later we had 23.
Don't be stupid!
[Leandro] There was one that came
and was a little more, more, more violent in how he behaved, and how he treated us.
Another would say to the guy, "Don't worry, the negotiator's here."
"We'll talk this out and surrender. It's okay."
There was a very nervous guy.
He was gonna burst, he just really needed to piss and,
he whined and moaned.
"Hey, mister. I can't piss here because everyone is right there looking."
"Well then go ahead, piss on the stairs, buddy, please."
People began to get nervous about this situation.
"What's the matter with you?" "I can't piss because I'm so nervous."
"Ah, no. Come here. No, no. Okay. Get him. You're leaving."
"Okay, come here, come here."
"Come on, you're leaving. Right now."
We opened the barricade, threw him out. Literally, we just tossed him out there.
Immediately, the response team flew in.
They tackled him and gave him a few punches,
because they didn't know if he was a hostage or a robber.
You, ma'am, are you pregnant?
Well, then you're leaving.
Come on, let's go.
[reporter] We've already seen progress take place here at the Río Bank.
Two people have been released, a man and a woman.
Here we see the moment
when the woman exits after being released by the criminals,
who have taken the employees and the customers of Río Bank hostage.
We have learned that they're having intense negotiations with the police,
who are trying to convince them to surrender.
[tense music playing]
[Araujo] I had two radios.
One on the police frequency,
another to communicate between, uh, my partners and, um…
and one was… I mean, just a cheap walkie-talkie,
like you'd buy, um-- That comes in twos.
Yeah?
That walkie-talkie comes with channels.
And I remember starting to scan through…
[walkie-talkie static]
…and I could hear the Falcon Group.
I remember I went to Mario and said, "Man, listen to this, listen to this."
[garbled speech]
[Mario] I listened to the snipers
giving their reports to the head of the operation over the radio.
And the head of the operation responding back to the snipers.
At one point I heard them say:
[sniper 1] I have the one above.
[sniper 2] I have the one below.
[garbled speech]
[Mario] That means that, if the boss says, "Go ahead,",
well then both me and De la Torre get a bullet in our foreheads.
And De la Torre saw them.
He ran up and he grabbed the phone,
and he said, "Tell your guys to stand down or I'll kill a hostage right now!"
I don't remember the specific words because, well,
it was an extreme situation with a lot of tension.
So they had the team on the roof get down, like the man in the gray suit said.
But as for the sharpshooters, I mean, the Falcon snipers, there were three,
he never saw them.
-[police sirens blaring] -[indistinct police radio chatter]
We set aside a period of time for the work to get done in the bank, you know?
With opening all the locks and moving all the hostages,
in that allocated time, we had opened 143 of the boxes.
The ones left were taking longer.
We needed time to, uh, reposition all of the equipment,
and we never planned for that.
So then it was decided that we had to move on.
So once the two hours are done,
we are going to position ourselves here to lower the loot into the tunnel,
as quickly as we possibly can.
[Mario] I received a call. It was from Araujo.
[beeping]
[Araujo over phone] We're leaving. Stage: Pizza.
[Mario] So then I made another call to the negotiator.
[Sileo] I said, "Alright, are you turning yourselves in?"
[Mario] I guess so. Looks like this isn't going anywhere.
And they uh, wanted to eat something, 'cause they were gonna spend
a long time in the station and wouldn't be able to eat.
"Bring me some pizzas. Bring us some soda, we'll have a little food and surrender."
[clack echoing]
I clarify that they didn't get fugazzettas.
In a report, I think someone said,
"If I ask Sileo for a fugazzetta, we'll each need more."
"Five, he'll realize there are five of us and they'll take the bank."
That would've happened.
After that situation, when the order finally arrives,
and the exchange has to be made, communications are lost.
[suspenseful music playing]
Go.
[Araujo] What am I gonna do in the meantime?
I'm going to deal with the weapons that you're going to leave with me
in the vault.
And the next step is, "Hair and Bleach."
Five liters of chlorine spread around to prevent DNA.
Then I'll scatter this hair right here.
[Mario] Araujo and I are the last ones out.
With a rope, he puts his foot down and pulls like this,
dragging the furniture over the hole.
[boat engine fails to start]
García Bolster tried to start it. "Rrr, rrr", and couldn't get it running.
[boat engine fails to start]
And Vitette, he was getting pretty nervous.
Shouted, "Don't prime it, don't flood it, you're gonna flood it", and this and that.
With all of this money and an engine that won't turn on, I'm losing it!
[Sebastián] Vitette tries to turn it on, the engine.
He can't turn it on, so they started paddling.
[Mario] All of us were in the first boat, the one with the engine.
Except Araujo, who's lying down in the backup raft, the inflatable one.
[tense music playing]
I remember throwing myself in the second dinghy,
on top of the money.
On top of the pile, he spread out, lying down like this.
[Araujo] We passed through a sewer, the one closest to the bank.
We saw shadows, noises and…
And then the Martian started the engine.
[boat engine starts]
[Sebastián] We traveled 14 blocks and we reached the sewer exit.
We notified our other companion, Paisa, who was upstairs,
that we were already below, so,
he lifted the manhole cover from above, it was too heavy to lift from below.
[Mario] I think I was the last one to climb up there.
Everybody was already in the van.
There was no room for anything else, just people and bags.
[police siren blaring in distance]
We'll load up the loot
and voilà!
[rock music playing]
[Beto] We all left in the caravan
and drove to the place where we would distribute the money.
My thought was they were barricading the entrances, and were going to resist.
[Leandro] We didn't hear any more noise. There was no one.
We started looking at each other, until I thought,
"They'll be posing as hostages upstairs, they'll have changed,
they'll be up there waiting for the police."
[Mario] We arrived at the place and the gate opened.
Then we started to unload bags.
And more bags.
And look, I'm not exaggerating this for you, guys.
And more bags.
Right away, the first thing that I wanted to do is turn on the TV,
and make sure they weren't behind us, they still hadn't sent the Falcon Group.
And here we were, with all the money, so far away.
[suspenseful music playing]
Then they report, "The police are entering at this very moment."
And we saw live and direct,
that the Falcon Group was finally going to breach the bank, to catch all of us.
[police sirens blaring]
[Sileo] "Police, police, police!"
The door opened, and we stormed in. I really thought I was going into combat.
THEY RELEASE THE HOSTAGES
[reporter, in Spanish] 7:12 pm, we can see movement
of police officers and the Falcon Group who are going in.
-A sledgehammer to the glass and… -[glass shattering]
…they took the bank in two seconds.
[Sileo] Then you have to classify who's who.
They're all suspects.
They searched all of us with our hands up in the air.
And when we went out, my mother was with her husband outside,
And well, they just let them see us and that's it.
[camera shutter clicking]
I met up with my husband and my son.
It was a very emotional moment.
[host in Spanish] Anabella, the criminals, the four criminals, were they arrested?
What happened exactly? What do you know from there?
[Anabella] Four criminals were subdued who were found taking this bank branch.
It just ended recently,
moments ago at exactly 7:20 pm.
They began to identify, "This person is a bank employee, this is a customer "
I saw the line got shorter and shorter and they weren't there.
I remember we took all the money and put it on one side against the wall.
A pile of a $100,000 right there.
Another pile of 100,000 over there
And then this pile of 100,000 goes here.
And the room began to fill up.
It's almost like I was sitting on a mountain.
[chuckling] A mountain and mountain of bills.
[in Spanish] In San Isidro, the hostage situation is over.
We're live after seven hours.
All hostages are free, and no criminals have been arrested.
HOSTAGES FREED THE THIEVES HAVE ESCAPED
"It's all here. Very nice. What a joy! Time to split it up."
They said, "Who's got a calculator?" No, my friend, no calculator.
We counted all of it, and I remember there were 20 dollars left.
So there was $20 bill left over,
and there were five people, and no one could break it.
So Vitette tore it up!
[upbeat rock music playing]
There were people looking in all the rooms,
because they had already gone through the place and checked the entire bank!
Until someone says, "This piece of furniture isn't supposed to be here."
When they realized, they moved the furniture and found the famous hole.
-[in Spanish]Where does it go? -To the left.
[Sileo] The Chief wants to go in.
There is even a homemade door and a booby trap.
So they call in the bomb squad. They specialize in this kind of stuff.
[Anabella, in Spanish] The four criminals escaped
through the bank's storm drain with the loot.
[host] Anabella, I mean, here we're getting complete misinformation.
They even gave versions of the arrest of the four criminals,
to now say they escaped with the loot.
They tell us there are people in the trees,
and we're gonna look in the trees.
They say there are people in the water, we'll ask the coast guard to help.
It was around 5:00, and it was already clearing up.
In the house, everything was quiet. On TV, they had no idea.
The big question wasn't "How much did they take?" No!
"Where are the thieves that did this?"
We wanted to leave. Everyone, I imagine. I wanted to leave.
All of us wanted to leave
so we grabbed all of the things that belonged to us and left. I mean…
There wasn't a goodbye like, "Hey, alright, see you tomorrow." No.
Not at all. We just bagged up and never see each other.
["Queen" by Perfume Genius playing]
♪ Yet ♪
♪ Even ♪
♪ Flower bloom at my feet ♪
[Mario] So, we said goodbye like this: "Okay, see you never!"
We grabbed my car, The Kid and I, we left together.
♪ Peeling ♪
♪ Riddled with disease ♪
[Mario] We took off down the Panamerican Highway
with the windows open.
With the music blasting.
and in the back seat, there were four bags.
His was a little smaller than mine,
but four trash bags nonetheless, all full of cash.
[Beto] I left in my car, got the bag, put it in the trunk and I went home.
♪ No family is safe ♪
♪ When I sashay ♪
[Sebastián] I am a very reserved person.
No… I didn't go straight to a party from there, anything like that.
No, I pretty much stayed at the house.
With a ton of money.
[Mario] I dropped off The Kid and we said goodbye.
Then I drove over a few blocks to 2590 Santa Fe.
That's where I live. 13th floor, suite 47.
And I went to my bedroom, took off my clothes,
walked around, took a bath. I don't even think I dried off.
And I just opened those bags.
I finally got to touch what was my money.
Earlier, I had so much money in my hands, but it wasn't mine, it was everyone's.
But now, this loot that I had here, in my house, it's all mine.
♪ Case in the barracks ♪
♪ For an ass to break and harness… ♪
And I arrived and it was like my birthday. They were all waiting for me. [chuckles]
♪ Mary ♪
Especially Alicia, her eyes were…
The feeling in that moment, it was just…
I left the bag of money there,
I kept checking on it 'cause there were people around but, now what?
I… I couldn't sleep for the next two days.
[Mario] We all talked about how Araujo wanted to leave a little sign.
And I said, "If the police see we left a sign here, that means we escaped."
If we escaped, that means we are counting money.
And if we're counting money, then why provoke them?
Why the runaround?
[reporter] They left behind evidence of a false escape, booby-traps
as well as an ironic message,
in an attempt to gain popularity and notoriety, which said…
-"In a town of riches…" -"…without weapons or grudges…"
"…there's just money…"
"…and no more love."
"IN A TOWN OF RICHES, WITHOUT WEAPONS OR GRUDGES,
THERE'S JUST MONEY AND NO MORE LOVE"
Yeah, one of the fundamental things that thieves always have,
and why they fall prisoner to, is ego.
And vanity.
After such a huge robbery,
do you think these guys aren't gonna brag about it?
[in Spanish] Last Friday the 13th was a dark Friday, as the superstition goes.
They didn't take long to suspect corrupt police officers
in the face of a string of violent acts in the suburbs.
[reporter] No matter how much they search, they can't find them.
The work of investigators has collided with a flawless plan so far.
The Río Bank thieves have left nothing to chance.
Maybe they were really smart guys.
COMMISSIONER OSVALDO SEISDEDOS
But at the Ministry of Security, in the justice system, and at the police,
we also have very intelligent investigators,
and no matter how long it takes, these individuals will be arrested
and will have a nice story to tell their cellmates.
[Sebastián] I planned a little getaway
to go to the same place I've gone my whole life.
I knew everything had gone perfectly.
No one had seen my face, I had not been filmed on any camera.
I was actually very calm, you could say.
I thought it would all work out.
[atmospheric music playing]
[Araujo] After 15 days, a thought came to my head.
It said, "Go to San Juan."
TO BAUCHAZETA
[Araujo] I went with high altitude equipment.
With… cans of tuna.
With meditation books.
And with a radio frequency scanner.
[Mario] A few weeks later after the crime,
I came to Uruguay.
I visited my family, bearing some small gifts.
I was free, I had money.
It was the best.
GOLD
♪ Nah, nah, na-na The love, the love… ♪
[Beto] My cell phone shop was doing very well.
And Alicia was too, with her job, working both places.
I started to walk around, to start getting rid of evidence.
And I come back one day
and find my bag is now out of place. And I say, "What happened here?"
I saw that the stack of money had dropped quite a bit. So I said,
"Listen, did you take something?"
"Yeah, I took about five or six bags."
Well, five or six bags was about $300,000.
Days passed, I also put some pound sterling in a drawer of mine.
One day, I opened that drawer and they were gone.
"No, I took that, too,"
"You don't have to touch everything," and we started arguing,
A big argument: "Hand it over." "What? No."
"Bring it back today, not tomorrow, right now."
It was a huge fight. I take what was left elsewhere,
leave my house then she sends the police after me.
COURTHOUSE SAN ISIDRO
[Alicia] I saw him. Cameras were focusing on the bank and he was going up a ladder
and I knew his clothes and I knew it was him.
Eighteen years with one person,
you couldn't see his face, but I knew it was him.
Alicia Di Tullio was the confidential witness
who appeared at the prosecutor's office one day, spontaneously.
And she told us that she had knowledge about the situation.
GASTÓN GARBUS THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY
Specifically, that her husband had participated in the robbery,
and she had knowledge of where a little bit of the bank's money went.
For the purposes of this case, there is no proof that allows us to say
what happened between those two.
I feel like it was related to the cash
and it wasn't induced from a matter of spite over the presence of another lady.
And the theory of a resentful woman, all that, it's a lie as big as a house.
If I had another woman, I'd leave an envelope with money
and take off with a million dollars wherever I want.
I wasn't going anywhere without my wife and my son anyway.
I guess she thought otherwise. I think, I mean,
she valued the money more than family, so…
And that was it. That's just the tragic ending of my story, anyway.
Well, I think of everyone's, too.
[Gastón] Di Tullio gives us everyone's description
uh, but avoids giving us their names.
[Mario] I went with my daughter, and my grandchildren to a house on the beach.
And I was carrying two phones.
A Uruguayan one,
and an Argentinian one.
[phone ringing]
So then, my Argentinian phone rang and I began to get nervous.
[phone ringing]
"Hello?" It's Doc.
"De la Torre's wife is going to turn us all in soon."
"She's asking for each of us to pay her $300,000."
"If we don't, she's going to give us up."
"Doc, she can go fuck herself, I'm not giving her a thing."
"Let Beto fix all this with her and leave me out of it."
But that call left me feeling a bit uneasy.
[reporter, in Spanish] The arrested man was identified as Alberto Torre,
who spent almost 20 of his 52 years
in prison for armed robberies and kidnappings for ransom.
At Portela 56, home of the son of one of the detainees,
part of the loot was found,
938,700 dollars,
30,084 euros, and 80,315 pesos.
We're carrying out seven raids
in the capital city and province of Buenos Aires.
Long guns and hand guns have been seized. All of them were used in the bank robbery.
This is a war of wits and we intend to win.
[somber music playing]
[Gastón] Just because Di Tullio provided information that made some raids possible,
a lot sooner than others, doesn't mean that the focus of the investigation
began that day with Di Tullio.
The first bit of evidence that we came across,
was from a telephone number that the perpetrators of the robbery
gave to a media outlet.
That telephone had contacted a lot of other phones.
And those phones, at one time or another, had registered SIM cards.
From all those, emerges one phone
that maintained communications with Vitette Sellanes in Uruguay,
with De la Torre's business, and a phone registered to Sebastián García Bolster.
[Araujo] If Di Tullio hadn't spoken,
perhaps someone else would have said something.
But I imagined it
a year or two later, but not a few months after, you know?
[reporter, in Spanish] After all this, the man arrested last Saturday
will be investigated by the district attorney in charge, Dr. Jorge Apolo.
We're talking about 52-year-old Alberto de la Torre.
[Araujo] Automatically I said "Di Tullio, how much does she know about me?"
I only remember seeing her one time when we met up to prepare the truck.
So I remained quite calm, in a way, more or less.
But, uh, a couple of weeks later,
they detain Sebastián at Villa Gesell.
[reporter, in Spanish] This is Sebastián Bolster, the man accused
of collaborating with the criminals
to perfect and construct the tunnel used to commit the robbery
at the Río Bank branch in Acassuso.
[Araujo] I was looking for the red dot on my body
because I imagined that, at any moment, they could have me in their sights.
And that they were going to come for me.
What I did was wait and make a plan with my lawyers
so we could have access to the police file
and be able to finally see my procedural status.
And as the days passed, I decided to lose weight.
I went into D-Day at 110 kilos.
Therefore, knowing that I quite possibly would have to go through a lineup,
I began a strict training regimen and diet, to lose weight.
[reporter] The truck with the hole was found completely burnt in Alejandro Korn,
blocks away from the house where fat Julián was arrested last Saturday,
the man who had driven the day of the robbery.
[reporter 2] After 30 days under arrest, Sebastián García Bolster
spent the night at his father's house.
[interviewer] What's your occupation?
I fix Jet Skis.
My whole life, I've gone to the river to try Jet Skis. This is all so crazy.
[reporter] Regarding his alleged escape to Villa Gesell,
where he was finally arrested,
he said it was a regular family outing.
[Mario] I called my lawyers in Argentina
and told them to act according to the law.
[delicate music playing]
[reporter, in Spanish] He boarded a plane. Aerolíneas Argentinas flight 1213
left at 8:00 am from Montevideo.
But the welcome took place at Aeroparque.
[Mario] I was in Uruguay when they robbed the bank!
I was in Montevideo when they robbed the bank!
-[woman] Why did you turn yourself in? -[reporter] Why, Mario?
[reporter 2] Is he the famous man in the gray suit?
Yes, indeed. This is the man in the gray suit,
the gang leader, and the mastermind of this criminal operation
that took place at the bank in Acassuso.
[Araujo] And so the days went by until my file arrived.
There were eight volumes.
Each volume had 200 pages. It was 1,600 pages long.
And, trust me,
no one has read anything
as passionately as I did my case file.
[somber music playing]
I wanted to know what had happened
after devising a plan that should have gone off like clockwork.
What went wrong?
Then I come to find out there's a warrant for my arrest.
I see from my hideout,
a green car.
And I see two people who start walking towards me.
And, suddenly, he points a rifle at me. "National Police!", he says.
"What are you doing here?", they ask.
I say, "A spiritual retreat."
But in my heart I knew it was already over.
Why's that? Basically because I had eight volumes of my file over there.
"May we check your tent, please?"
Well, before he walks in, I go,
"Don't waste your time. I'm him. Fernando Araujo."
[reporter] Araujo, were you alone when the National Force captured you?
[in Spanish] Art. Art.
-[woman] What? You were making art? -[Araujo] Art.
-[reporter 2] What kind of art? -[reporter 3] Tell us.
There he is. All right.
[reporter 4] Without any statements, Araujo gets into the truck,
heavily guarded by the National Police
to be transferred to Police Station number 21 in Jáchal,
where he will surely meet Judge Carlos Mateo.
[gentle music playing]
[Araujo] One day later, I arrived in San Isidro under arrest.
But I was calm.
Feet together.
-Osu! -[all] Osu!
Let us begin.
I felt a tremendous peace. Don't ask me exactly why,
but what happened next, in a way, balanced itself out.
Come on, Pat
Spider.
I got the worst prosecutor.
Over.
But I also got a very good judge.
He tells me, "Fernando, I'm going to set you free!"
"I'm not putting an ankle bracelet on you."
"You can go to work every day at the gym to teach martial arts."
Start with the shoulder blade.
Obviously, the shoulder blade here dictates my move
but if he escapes and realizes what I'm gonna do to him…
[Araujo] So, after 20 days, suddenly, I was at home and free.
And I was like this for… about four years or so.
[tense music playing]
CRIMINAL COURT
[host] Four years after the infamous heist,
the accused will meet to face the court responsible for ruling the so-called
"Robbery of the Century."
2010 we went to court.
[tense music continues]
Beto, Zallo, me, and Seba…
Marito had a different trial which later became an abbreviated trial.
[host] All four men are being charged with robbery, and aggravated robbery
by the use of firearms.
[attorney] We argue that the aggravation should not have been applied
because the weapons that were seized in different raids
don't coincide with the ones used here, which are in fact toy weapons.
I think you have to be quite naïve to buy into the idea that this kind of robbery
could be carried out with two toy guns.
And that this is an unarmed robbery case.
[Sebastián] The weapons we used to take the bank were replicas.
and it was all designed so that
no one would be able to tell they were toy guns.
Legally, if the weapons can shoot,
the penalty is much greater than if they can't,
if they are not capable of firing at all.
Well, this was perfectly well known,
so we tried to really clarify
under what type of legal qualification this case would be classified.
The guns the men used were real.
The guns were very real. I can guarantee that.
No person enters a bank knowing they have to get through security,
armed security guards, alarms.
And the person in the white smock had a Browning 2000.
[Beto] I think that he…
He just won't give in to admitting that he was tricked by a plastic pistol.
That's all it is. That's what I think.
That's what it was but he didn't want to hear any of it, you know?
[tense music continues]
[woman] San Isidro, May 21st, 2010.
This court, as of today, attentive to the preceding verdict,
unanimously rules as follows:
To sentence Rubén Alberto de la Torre to a penalty of 15 years in prison.
We also sentence José Julián Zalloechevarria
to 10 years in prison.
We sentence Sebastián Norberto García Bolster
to a penalty of nine years in prison.
And we sentence Fernando Araujo to a penalty of 14 years in prison.
In the first hearing they were accused of aggravated robbery using a weapon,
of which their aptitude for shooting was proven already.
What justice finally established,
and ultimately, what their final judgment was based on,
was that they were toy guns.
In other words, the weapons were incapable of firing bullets.
Or being used in that way.
The only benefit, so to speak, that Vitette Sellanes got,
was managing not to go to trial with the rest of his companions.
We made an abbreviated trial agreement
and unified the sentences that he previously had,
so in the end, he made a deal to serve one sentence
for all the crimes he was a part of within that given time period.
[Araujo] They sentenced me to 14 years,
but I ended up spending only one and a half years in prison in that jail.
In total, I was held for 25 months, either in a prison or at the police station.
Then I was under house arrest for two more years.
[Beto] The prosecution requested I serve 20 years.
The court gave me 15.
The appeal made it 12 and a half.
And I did eight and half.
[Mario] I spent three years too many on a bureaucratic issue, or a vendetta.
The truth is this.
Look, I don't usually use bad words.
Screw it, I don't give a fuck.
[Sebastián] Well, my life took a turn for the worse.
In fact, after my first release,
I went through a depression,
because I went from Sebastián, the motorcycle mechanic,
into Sebastian, the bank robber. I mean…
I went from being a normal person,
to, I don't know. A super villain? A superhero?
I don't know why,
people would congratulate me and I didn't know what to do,
I'd say, "I don't really know what you're talking about, guys. I don't know."
[reflective music playing]
[Beto] Still to this day,
no amount of money can pay for the time that I lost.
In a span of a year, I can do a lot of things
but locked up I'm useless, I can't do anything.
Then you look back at the time you lost, banging your head against the wall,
wanting revenge and getting let out, I'm gonna get locked up again,
you add up the years, and you lost your whole life to this.
I can say it wasn't worth it.
[phone chimes]
[male voice] Hi, good morning, Beto.
So sorry to bother you.
Do you have any lawyers that you could recommend?
Yes, listen, actually I'm in the office right now, so…
The robbery was an adventure, it was an illusion, it was…
like winning the world title and well, that's that.
[upbeat music playing]
[Mario] The man in the gray suit was a hit.
I started talking about diamond rings, a lot of gold chains.
I don't smoke, but these huge cigars from Cuba.
Some provocative tweets…
Fifteen-thousand followers on Twitter, make that 20,
and it's a 25 now.
Two accounts on Facebook.
The persona is arrogant, he's rebellious, he's provocative.
And the persona steadily grew.
Okay give me a washcloth, please.
Look, let's do this right.
You see the persona.
He takes off his chains, his gold, and his diamonds,
I leave… the cross necklace it was my dad's,
which is something that I cherish a lot.
The persona? The persona wipes off with makeup remover.
Okay. All done.
Marito wears jeans to work because they tear.
They get worn out 'cause he's working with nitric acid at the jewelry store.
What's wrong with that?
I burned both my hands, I cut my fingers, I get dirty polishing,
But I feel great.
[upbeat music playing]
And there are people who suddenly idolize this.
Who see it as, I don't know, something out of the ordinary.
But let's agree that it's not an act of charity.
It's a robbery, obviously.
No, it might not be charity.
But everyone who played a role in this story won.
Prosecutors advanced careers,
police officers became detectives afterwards,
and the judges were recognized.
The victims' insurance got them more than they had.
Like pirinola, where everyone is a winner.
Shoo.
Do you believe this is actually my studio?
We're illusionists, and sometimes, just sometimes, we evaporate.
[blows]
["Where Is My Mind?" by Pixies playing]
You're not gonna ask me where the money is or what I did with it.
No, I don't think that you are that childish, are you? [chuckles]
Saying how much we managed to actually steal from Río Bank in total
is pretty difficult to calculate.
♪ But there's nothing in it ♪
♪ And you'll ask yourself ♪
♪ Where is my mind? ♪
Just how much did we all get from the job?
I try to remember and I swear it's like I blacked out.
I mean, you know that marijuana causes memory issues,
so no, I don't know the exact amount.
[interviewer] How much money was taken from the Río Bank in 2006?
Oh yeah, let me answer that right away.
♪ I was swimming in the Caribbean ♪
I get everybody's curiosity, it's great.
The tabloids, the yellow journalism, where is it?
Yeah, it's in the Cayman Islands in the-- You better write this down.
CBU Number 24…
Like, what? It's incredible, isn't it?
♪ Bump into me, swear he's tryin' A talk to me, say wait, wait ♪
I think society is subconscious to us.
All we want to know is how much.
Because we can say, "Well, what if I robbed a bank?"
And they're contemplating, how much would it take, you know?
"How much would I go to prison for?"
But, uh, where is it?
[laughs]
It's wonderful!
It's wonderful.
IN MEMORY OF MY GRANDMA…
["Where Is My Mind?" continues playing]
♪ With your feet on the air And your head on the ground ♪
♪ Try this trick and spin it, yeah ♪
♪ Your head will collapse ♪
♪ If there's nothing in it And you'll ask yourself ♪
♪ Where is my mind? ♪
♪ Way out in the water See it swimming ♪
♪ Try this trick and spin it, yeah ♪