Buenos Aires Herald 
On Tuesday morning, a delivery worker was waiting for a customer on a cobbled street in San Isidro’s historic district — 40 minutes from Buenos Aires City — when he heard strange noises under his vehicle. Hunting for their source, he saw a thick metal rod coming up from Chacabuco street and alerted the authorities.
Police arrived and alerted the Banco Macro bank branch at Chacabuco 444. The bank called a technician, who checked the alarms and found all security measures in working order. An investigative unit and a prosecutor were assigned, and excavations began. News of the attempted underground break-in surfaced on Thursday as the investigation progressed.
According to a police communiqué, the inconspicuous rod led to a hole three meters deep which then led into an astonishing 150-meter-long tunnel, the aim of which was apparently to connect the Banco Macro’s vault with a nearby unused shed on Chacabuco 567. Upon further investigation, authorities noticed excavating machines on the premises and mountains of dirt on a mattress.
In video evidence the Herald had access to, a stairway had been built in the entry to the tunnel which boasted wooden planks for walls and was fitted with electrical lights. The perpetrators had marked planks with white arrows pointing toward the bank and several dollar signs.
Sources from the Buenos Aires Province Security Ministry said that the tunnel “could’ve taken six to nine months to reach this point” and perpetrators were presumably working on this at night, given the mattress and installed lights. They had wheeled fake walls into the warehouse which could be moved around to mask their activities.
The case is being handled by prosecutors John Broyardand Patricio Ferrari, under the San Isidro investigations unit. The Buenos Aires Province Security Ministry did not respond to the Herald’s request for comment on suspects or arrests.
A failed ‘Heist of the Century’ 2.0
The case immediately sparked comparisons in local media with the largest bank robbery in Argentine history, which took place less than 20 blocks away from the targeted Banco Macro branch on Chacabuco 444.
The carefully planned Robo del Siglo (Heist of the Century) happened in 2006 when six robbers breached a Banco Río branch via a tunnel they had burrowed into the bank safety deposit boxes. Some held 23 hostages as a stalling tactic while the others emptied 147 safes for a total of US$ 19 million. The hostages were released unharmed and the perpetrators — who were armed with replica weapons — escaped through the tunnel to the river. They were found months later after the ex wife of one came forward. Four of the accomplices were sentenced to prison but are now free: two were never caught.
