720kg of gold gone in three minutes during daring heist at Brazil airport
- The night before the robbery, criminals kidnapped relatives of an employee, who is in charge of the gold cargo
- He was forced to provide detailed information that helped in the heist
Criminals disguised as federal police officers drove to the Guarulhos airport on Thursday afternoon in an SUV and low loader, both fashioned to look official, according to the airport’s press office. Security camera footage shows them wearing balaclavas and giving orders to cargo terminal employees, one of whom used a forklift to load the precious cargo onto the truck’s bed.
The gold was bound for Zurich and New York, the airport’s press office said in an email, without disclosing its provenance. Sao Paulo’s civil police, which is in charge of the investigation, said the men took 720 kilograms (1,587 pounds) in bars valued at 110 million reais (US$30 million).
The crime was perpetrated by “a well-organised gang,” police chief João Carlos Miguel Hueb told reporters on Friday. “This certainly wasn’t their first robbery.”
Brazil has been the site of a series of audacious heists. In the largest robbery in the country’s history in 2005, thieves tunnelled into the central bank’s regional unit in Fortaleza to take the equivalent of US$67 million in local currency.
A similar plot in 2017 was foiled just before tunnellers reached Banco do Brasil’s vault. Criminals routinely steal or blow up ATMs, hijack cargo trucks and armoured vehicles, and once made off with millions of dollars worth of merchandise from a Samsung factory.