Manhattan’s brazen bucket-of-gold thief, famous from viral video, is caught in Ecuador

A man who police say absconded in broad daylight with a 40kg bucket of gold stolen from the back of a truck in New York City this fall has finally been caught after he evaded authorities for nearly four months.

Julio Nivelo, 53, was apprehended Thursday in Ecuador by local police and members of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to the New York Police Department.

Nivelo has had run-ins with the law before. A 165cm, 70kg thief who operates out of New Jersey, Nivelo used aliases including Luis Toledo and David Vargas, police said.

“He is, I would say, a professional burglar, a professional thief,” New York Police Detective Martin Pastor told the New York Daily News last year.

Authorities had arrested Nivelo before, subsequently deporting him to his home country of Ecuador a total of four times.

In November, police released the video footage of the September 29 incident. Guards parked the armoured car along Manhattan’s 48th Street, a crowded area near Rockefeller Centre. While the two guards were distracted and talking by the vehicle’s front, the man struck from the rear.