Bank Robbers The Last Great Heist (Los Ladrones: la verdadera historia del robo del siglo) is the latest documentary on Netflix which investigates the robbery of the century, that happened in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The film has a runtime of about 1 hour and 50 minutes and is directed by Matías Gueilburt.
Through candid interviews, the perpetrators of Argentina’s most notorious bank heist detail how, and why they carried out the radical 2006 operation. The robbers came up with creative ideas to rob the bank without any violence and disappeared into thin air until one of their known betrayed them, by exposing their identity.
Bank Robbers The Last Great Heist Members
Fernando Araujo: The Artist
He is the mastermind behind the whole plan and calls him the artist. He was an ordinary happy person who had taken some time off to focus on different types of arts. That’s when he came up with the plan of robbing the Rio bank in Acassuso, San Isidro. It can be said that he created the dream team that made it all happen.
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When the group was exposed by Alicia Di Tulio, he was actually on a spiritual retreat in San Juan and was the last one to be arrested. Even that was voluntary when some policemen came to check up his tent in the middle of nowhere, otherwise, he could have been on a run yet. He was sentenced to 14 years in jail but served a year and a half only.
Currently, he teaches martial arts at a local gym and also works as a screenwriter and producer for productions based on the incident, to provide an accurate detail. Since the stolen money was never recovered, we can imagine that he got the piece of the pie that he wanted.
Sebastian Garcia Bolster: The Engineer
He is Fernando’s childhood friend, who was recruited by him to work together at first. He is the initial member that measured the length and breadth of the drain tunnel to reach the bank safe. Initially, it was just him and Fernando who were working on the plan to quietly steal away the money, but once they ran out of funds to support the project, they involved other people.
In the film, he says that he never did anything wrong or illegal but this plan got his interest. With the help of his engineering background, he was the technical guy who came up with solutions and gadgets, to get the work done. He was also sentenced to 9 years in jail but served only 25 months, followed by two years of house arrest.
Although, it seems like he has returned to his jet ski repair shop, but he comments that his identity changed overnight from an engineer to a robber. Yet people come up to congratulate him and think of him as a hero, which he doesn’t understand.
Luis Mario Vitette: The Negotiator
He is also popularly known as ‘The Man in the Gray Suit’ for his role as the fake negotiator during the heist. He is an Uruguayan man who fled to Argentina during his temporary break from prison and joined the thieves gang, robbing rich people. His gang was called the spiderman gang, as they climbed high-rise buildings and robbed the rich inhabitants.
After his arrest he was given a collective sentence for all the crimes, which included four years in correctional facilities, later he was ousted to Uruguay in 2013 upon a promise never to return again. Since then, he has established a jewellery business in his home country and even wrote a memoir titled El Robo Del Siglo (The Robbery of The Century) back in April 2015 and might be working on another.
Alberto ‘Beto’ De la Torre
Beto is definitely the one in the group who suffered the most. Since his wife Alicia was the one to report to the police, he was soon arrested and 938,700 dollars, 30,084 euros, and 80,315 pesos were even recovered from his home. His wife was taking away the money one by one so he hid some of it at another place and what was left at the house, was taken away by the police.
He was sentenced to 15 years and received the harshest sentence out of all the members. But an appeal reduced it to 12 and a half years, and he was released after 8 and a half years. He also published a book called Robbery of the Century: The Secret History and worked as an actor in some productions as well.
Apart from the money recovered from his money, nothing else was recovered from the robber. There was no effort to legally retrieve the money either since the insurance companies and the bank had already handled the situation. Even the members didn’t reveal how much did they steal exactly, but they certainly are living a comfortable life.
Bank Robbers The Last Great Heist is streaming on Netflix.
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