Argentina Police discover 220-meter-long tunnel in front of bank in Buenos Aires
With the discovery of a 220-meter-long tunnel in a suburb of Buenos Aires, Argentine authorities may have prevented a heist of the century. The tunnel, dug three meters below the earth's surface, ends just a few meters from a bank branch,
09.08.2024, 02:07
SDA
The tunnel has a ventilation system and a power connection, as the police explained on Thursday.
The underground passageway in the affluent San Isidro neighborhood was discovered by chance: a driver noticed a metal pole sticking out of the paving stones of the street while parking. The public prosecutor's office ordered an investigation, during which the tunnel was found and a shed was identified as the starting point. Large quantities of earth and equipment used for digging were found in the shed.
Investigators estimate that it took six to nine months to build the tunnel. It was "a work of engineering" that was better "than Chapo Guzmán's tunnel", they said, alluding to the tunnel through which the famous Mexican drug lord escaped from prison in 2015.
The incident brings back memories of the Argentinian "heist of the century" in 2006, when a group of criminals stole almost 19 million dollars from a bank, also in San Isidro, and escaped through a tunnel that had been dug for a year.
