SAO PAULO — Thieves who spent months tunneling from a rented house to an armored car company made off with nearly $6 million over the weekend as season-ending soccer matches virtually paralyzed the nation, Brazilian authorities said today.
The heist was discovered Sunday evening — after the games ended. Officers followed the tunnel from the company’s safe some 110 yards underground to a house, Sao Paulo police said in a statement.
Police said the home, abandoned when they arrived, had been occupied for about four months. Its former occupants are considered suspects, but there were no immediate arrests.
Officials with the armored car company — Transnacional Transporte de Valores e Seguranca Patrimonial Ltda — told officers 10 million reals ($5.9 million) was missing, according to the statement.
Globo TV’s G1 Web site reported that some security cameras at the transport company were not turned on when the theft happened, but authorities did not immediately confirm that.
The heist occurred on the last weekend of the soccer season, when the league championship and relegation matches had people nationwide glued to their televisions.
Two years ago, thieves used dynamite to blow up a safe and steal nearly $10 million from the office of another money transport company in Sao Paulo, South America’s largest city and Brazil’s hub of finance and commerce.
In 2005, about 10 suspects tunneled under a city street and stole more than $70 million in cash from central bank branch in the northeastern city of Fortaleza. It was the world’s biggest heist ever until more than $90 million was taken from a security warehouse in London a year later.
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