Stepping Away From My Normal Conservative Rant

As I read the article below, I couldn't help but smile. It got me thinking. Why is everyone intrigued by the intricate bank heist or art theft? I find myself actually pulling for the thieves in majority of these cases. I guess it has to do with the absence of violence during the crime and the planning and initiative it took to pull it off. Tell me you can sit through a movie like Ocean's 11, The Thomas Crown Affair, or any other movie dealing with elaborate robberies and not find yourself pulling for the thieves. Absence the consequences of getting caught or, God forbid, someone getting hurt or killed, I think most people would love to try to plan and execute their own heist. (Absence the consequences? Gee, sounds like the doctrine of the baby-booming left.) Sorry, had to get one conservative jab in today. Enjoy.

Thieves Tunneled for Three Months to Pull off Brazil's Biggest Bank Robbery
By Stan Lehman
Associated Press Writer
Published: Aug 9, 2005

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) - Thieves spent three months tunneling under a busy city avenue in northeastern Brazil to break into a Central Bank vault and pull off one of the world's biggest heists ever.
The robbery netted 156 million reals (US$67.8 million, euro55 million) from a vault at the Central Bank in the city of Fortaleza, 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) northeast of Sao Paulo, said federal police spokeswoman Sabrina Albuquerque by telephone.
The money was discovered missing when it was reopened Monday after it was closed for the weekend Friday evening.
The amount taken surpassed the US$65 million stolen in 1987 from the Knightbridge Safe Deposit Center in London, previously recognized by experts as the planet's biggest robbery. The Brazil heist, however, was dwarfed by the theft of US$900 million plus as much euro100 million from the Iraq Central Bank in 2003.
No one has been arrested in the Central Bank robbery, but at least eight suspects have been identified, Albuquerque said.
The heist was similar to one pulled off last year in Sao Paulo in which thieves tunneled into a Sao Paulo company that transports money for banks, making off with 4.7 million reals ($1.6 million, euro 1.4 million).
In Fortaleza, the thieves took three months to build an 80-meter-long (262-foot-long), 70-centimeter-high (28-inch-high) tunnel from a house they had rented near the bank, Albuquerque said. The tunnel was 4 meters (13 feet) below the floor of the vault and electric lighting, wooden panels and plastic sheets lining the walls.
The thieves had renovated the house and put up a sign indicating it was a landscaping company selling plants and natural and artificial grass, police said.
"I never saw them selling anything and in fact I never saw any plant or grass for sale in that house," said Richard Chamberlain, the owner of a bookstore next to the house rented by the thieves, speaking by telephone.
He said he never heard any noise "indicating that a tunnel was being dug," or noticed anything suspicious.
"The tunnel was dug underneath one of the city's busiest and noisiest avenues, so it would be hard to notice anything unusual," he said.
Inside the rented house, police found a bolt cutter, drill, electric saw and a blowtorch, which were apparently used to cut through the vault's 1.1-meter-thick (3.6-foot-thick) steel-reinforced concrete floor.
The thieves broke into five containers filled with 50-real (US$22; euro18) used notes collected from local retail banks for inspection by central bank auditors. Notes in good condition were due to be returned to the banking system, while worn notes were destined to be burned.
For James Wygand, a Sao Paulo-based security consultant the robbery "was organized and executed by professionals who knew exactly what they were doing ... this was not the kind of operation put together by a couple of friends over a few beers."
"It will be very difficult for police to trace the stolen bills because they were old and not in neatly sequenced piles," he said. "No one jotted the serial numbers."
Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper reported that police believe the robbery may have been masterminded by the same man suspected in last year's robbery of the money transport company in Sao Paulo. Moises Teixeira da Silva, a convicted bank robber, escaped from prison in Sao Paulo in 2001 along with more than 100 other inmates by building a tunnel out.
Meanwhile the Central Bank has begun its own investigation.
"We are looking into several aspects of the crime including why the cameras and motion detectors inside the vault did not function and if the thieves had any inside help," said Central Bank spokeswoman Beatriz Dornelles.
The biggest previous bank heist in Brazil took place in 1999 when thieves got away with 37 million reals (worth about US$16 million at today's exchange rate) from a Sao Paulo bank.
AP-ES-08-09-05 2136EDT