Rob a bank in Venezuela It may sound more surreal than you think, considering that the bolívar is currently one of the most undervalued currencies in the world. The minimum wage in that country is 126 bolivars, about 28 US dollars, according to an increase that Nicolás Maduro himself promised to make since March of this year. But despite the little exchange value, it is a currency and as such, it is not safe from an assault.
During the past weekend, it became known of an assault that was going to be carried out in a bank in the state of Barinas, in Venezuela. In the operation, Eight people were captured, including four of Colombian nationality. The objective was the vault of the entity, in the best style of other robberies such as those that inspired series such as ‘The robbery of the century’.
The Minister of the Interior and Justice of the neighboring country, Remilgo Ceballos, announced the fact and indicated the gang’s modus operandi, which could well inspire a series like ‘La casa de papel’, or be the sequel to the bank robbery of the Republic of Valledupar, in 1994.
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This is how the gang worked.
Inspired or not by real events, the criminals who were part of a transnational network -according to Minister Ceballos- they planned the robberies in advance: they thought of everything, from the materials to be used to the way in which they had to obtain electrical energy to start the drills and other oxyfuel equipment used to cut metals.
The Barinas bank robbery deserved to be analyzed and measured with caution, and for this reason, the eight criminals built a tunnel that ended at the site where the entity’s central vault is located; in fact, that job was entrusted to the Colombians, who played the role of topos not only with this but in other bank robberies.
In addition, they did monitoring work during the week: they checked camera locations, places where security members stood, and the beginning and end of shifts of bank employees; and at the time of capture, the authorities found that the conduit was 18 meters long and 300 meters from the establishment.
Now, regarding the role of the Colombians within the gang, the director of the Scientific Investigation Corps, Douglas Rico, indicated that they were the ones who built the tunnels and then “stole the money during the weekend.
So they were captured
According to banking security experts, the criminals did not take into account the systems in that country, starting because the vaults have seismic and infrared sensors; added to that, the Barinas authorities were already following up on the gang for previous robberies that were executed under the same modality.
In the operation they also found shovels, hammers and drills, as well as a system that provided electrical energy, with which there was a high probability that the subjects would not only steal the vault, but also the safe deposit boxes.
Finally, the detained Colombians were identified as José Orlando Gelves Espinel, Erminson Romero Rayo, Carlos Enrique Platillo Flores and Orlando José Romero Cerquera, all over 50 years old, very much in the style of ‘The robbery of the century’, where the personified thieves were elderly. In this case, the real thieves were not so far removed from fiction.
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