Activity 1

Suject:

INGLES

Presents:

Eilen Estefani Forero Araque

Teacher

Pedro Alejandro Leon Velandia

NCR

1979

Bogotá D.C

25.08.2020
Millionaire jewelry robbery

This robbery is known as the largest robbery carried out in Colombia, this
happened in 1994, something that draws attention to this robbery is the fact that
everything was carried out so perfectly to the point of not making a single shot.
This happened on October 16, 1994, a group of men entered the Banco de la
Repú blica in Valledupar to commit what is, to date, the largest cash robbery in the
country's history.
These thieves entered like in the movie 'In Search of the Lost Gold'. Meanwhile,
on the other side of the street, around 30 people (with direct and indirect
participation) seized 24,072 million pesos (about 30 million dollars) as a result of
weekend consignments from central and northern banking entities del Cesar, and
south of La Guajira.
It is good to clarify that the assault did not arise from one moment to another.
Investigators and witnesses assure that the intelligence work to carry out the assault
took place during several months to be able to carry out this robbery, according to
witnesses the thieves were living in Bosconia, northwest of Valledupar, that place
where every day they worked on evaluating the caliber they should have. use to drill
the warehouses, camera setup and the participation of security guards, police officers
and evaluation of possible challenges during the assault.
 One of the known details tells how before entering, with the help of the police
officers who were guarding the quadrant, they had difficulties, one of the vehicles, a
Dodge 300, turned off and for several minutes they were under the tension of not
complying with the established schedule, which was initially from eight to nine hours.
The building where the money was stolen had four floors and was located on
16th Street with Carrera 9. The main vault was in the basement and could only be
accessed through an elevator, which was entered by activating a secret password.

The thieves did not violate any of the entrance doors and according to the
protection inspectors at that time, they did not notice anything abnormal by the
television screens located on the second floor and from where the entrance doors to
the building were operated, they only violated the

The main vault, installed in the basement, with autogenous welding equipment
and six oxygen capsules, elements that entered the same red truck.

The idea was to get about 3,000 million, but once the vault was opened, the
assailants contemplated the amount distributed in bills of 2,000, 5,000 and 10,000
pesos.
It was something superior to what they expected. Currently, that figure would be
equivalent to 161,000 million pesos.
It was at that moment when they had to make the decision, because it was going
to take longer than established, the weight of the money was going to affect the escape
plans and the oxygen was not going to be enough "The tests they did, the elements
that the bank had, came out more forceful than what they had tested outside -
Gutiérrez narrates -; that's why it took more time.
And they had to use more oxygen tanks. Fortunately, for them, they took enough
tanks and they achieved the objective. " Records of the investigation indicated that
the assailants almost suffocated inside the vault, because they brought giant drill bits
from Panama, but with them the boxes could not be opened, which led them to use
plasma, but thus the oxygen and when they were suffocating they had to make holes
in the walls to help them have more air.
In total, there were about 18 hours of work inside Vault 2 of the Banco de la
Repú blica. After midnight on October 17, the assailants left the scene in the red truck
through the front door with the aforementioned sum wrapped in plastic-sealed
packages.
After the inspection of the vault by members of the Public Prosecutor's Office, 23
oxygen bottles (17 of 60 pounds and 6 of 40), an acetylene bottle, more than 35
meters of three-phase cables, two air compressors, an extractor of air, a mallet, a pair
of surgical gloves, a drill, screwdrivers, tweezers, socket wrenches, pliers, and black
plastics.

As of October 18, 1994, and for around three years, commerce, according to
Herná n Gutiérrez, was seriously affected by this robbery. After the robbery, the sale of
the ‘vallenato notes’ was prohibited, since they could only be exchanged at the Banco
de la Repú blica.
At the end of 1997, the banknotes that were in circulation were exchanged.
Around 18,000 million pesos were exchanged by Colombians. It should be
remembered that in the case of the 2,000 bills, they had Simó n Bolívar drawn on their
front; those of 5,000, purple in color, had Rafael Nú ñ ez and Miguel Antonio Caro in the
back; and those of 10,000 pesos carried the image of the indigenous woman and on
the reverse a collection of birds. Of the 24,072 million pesos, 18,560 were unissued
notes (they had not been released to the public), 3,700 million pesos corresponded to
new notes (known series), and 1,812 million corresponded to notes that had been in
circulation.
Insurers were in charge of returning the money to the bank. Finally, it all ended
with the change of the banknotes as they are known today. According to the writer
Gutiérrez, much of that money was invested in the Llanos and Bogotá , but not all could
be recovered, so those bills, which had only been in circulation for around two years,
had to be forgotten by the country.