4m Underground Depth... Work Lasting at Least 6 Months
Expert: "It's Made So Well I Would Want to Hire It"
A 220-meter-long tunnel was excavated in a residential area in Argentina. It appears to have been aimed at robbing a bank vault.
On the 9th (local time), daily newspapers Clar?n and La Naci?n reported that on the 6th, a delivery worker who was about to park in front of Banco Macro in San Isidro, Buenos Aires Province, discovered a metal rod protruding from the ground.
He then heard strange sounds resembling hammering from underground and, suspicious, informed the security staff of Banco Macro.
After receiving the report from the bank, the police contacted the San Isidro City Hall to inquire whether any construction was underway underground, and received a reply that there was none.
Consequently, the city hall began digging underground for investigation, and later police, the waterworks authority, and civil defense personnel joined in, even deploying an excavator. Amid the commotion, a water pipe burst, and eventually a 220-meter-long tunnel was discovered at a depth of 4 meters underground. The tunnel was dug up to a point just a few meters away from the Banco Macro vault.
It is known that the tunnel excavation started from a closed car repair shop near Banco Macro. Local media reported that the people who rented the repair shop in November 2023 prepaid one year’s rent. The prosecution currently investigating the case believes they worked on it for at least six months.
The prosecution explained that the metal rod found by the delivery worker on the roadside was used to check how far the tunnel had been dug, and that the perpetrators appear to have planned the crime for this weekend.
An engineer who appeared on local TN broadcasting said, “This was work done by real professionals, with electrical and air circulation systems installed,” and added, “Seeing such well-done work, I would want to hire them.”
Argentina has experienced decades of economic instability, leading citizens to distrust the government and financial institutions, and it is common to store dollars and valuables in personal safes inside banks. Because of this, there have been several cases of tunnels being dug to target personal safes inside banks.
The most famous case was the 2006 Acassuso R?o Bank incident, where 1,900 safes were robbed of $19 million (approximately 25.9 billion KRW at current exchange rates).
At that time, the criminals dug a tunnel connected to the bank for over a year, then on the day of the incident staged a hostage situation inside the bank with fake guns to divert the attention of police and media. They then escaped by riding a rubber boat through a 1.5 km-long sewer.
Later, following a tip-off from an accomplice’s wife, all but two members of the gang were arrested or surrendered. After trial and imprisonment, they were released and now live as celebrities. The whereabouts of the stolen money remain unknown, and the incident was made into a movie in 2020.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
