ONE DAY AFTER THE ROBBERY
BOA VIAGEM AUGUST 6TH, 2005
In his testimony, Raimundo Laurindo confessed
that after they stole their money,
each person involved went their own way.
He explained that he and his partner hopped in a truck
and a certain point pulled over to the side of the road.
There, they hid their bags of money.
According to Raimundo, there were 12 million reais in those bags.
He was gonna split the loot with Lucivaldo Laurindo and someone else.
I asked him, "But why on the side of the road?"
He said a car was coming to pick him up.
Then I asked, "What kind?" "A pickup truck."
Then he told us they went to Boa Viagem and from there they went to Maranhão.
The courage and cleverness they had in planning and committing this crime
weren't there when it came to figuring out what to do with the money.
A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY SERIES
CURSED MONEY
The crime against the Central Bank was so complex
few criminals could have committed it.
So, before we even get to Fortaleza, when we were called to Brasília
we had already started our preliminary investigations, right?
Who could have committed that crime, right? Carried out that theft.
It was the biggest and perhaps most spectacular escape
from the detention facility ever.
At least 53 prisoners escaped.
There was a hole in the floor of the work therapy room,
At the other end of the tunnel was an exit
inside this house that is at the back of the prison.
Thieves, bank robbers, and murderers.
Prisoners with sentences up to 49 years.
The Carandiru's escape and the Transbank theft had already occurred,
so by reducing the pool of people who could rob the Central Bank,
he was already in our… our files as a potential participant,
architect of the Central Bank theft.
But it's one thing to identify Moisés, it's another thing to arrest Moisés.
The person who played the most important role in summoning
these criminals here in São Paulo was Moisés.
Moisés has the gift of gab.
MOLE - THE STORY OF THE CENTRAL BANK ROBBERY
He would have made a good con man if he weren't a bank robber.
He has an above-average power of persuasion.
Many of the people who were arrested reported him
as the person who recruited some of the bandits here in São Paulo
and convinced them to travel 3,000 kilometers
to dig 100 meters underground…
…and break a one-meter-thick concrete wall.
He has a great talent for seducing.
This is not a psychological diagnosis or an expert report.
But he is a very interesting person.
It must be wonderful to sit at a bar and have a beer with him.
He was one of the most well-spoken bandits I'd ever met.
He was well-educated and intelligent.
So intelligent that he became one of the most difficult people
I've ever had to arrest because he was very careful.
He had access to more information on how the police worked than anyone else.
In January, 2008, I was invited by the police chief, Antônio Celso,
to be part of the investigation team in the area of intelligence.
Moisés had a wife.
We were already aware of this,
and we already knew she was the owner of a restaurant.
We started to monitor both her calls and the people who contacted her.
His wife owned a restaurant inside a superstore on the north side.
We began observing her and noticed a pattern.
She disappeared on weekends.
She disappeared. Her phone was turned off.
It usually happened from Friday to Monday.
One day, we noticed an unknown number called her.
We started to track this number.
The calls from this number were always made on the move.
It was never in a fixed spot.
Always moving by car.
One day, she was supposed to hand over their son,
a ten-year-old boy, to a man who would come to pick him up.
We wondered
why she'd let a stranger pick her kid up.
Either this man is driving the kid to his father,
or this man was actually his father.
And as a result, we mobilized surveillance teams.
"Someone is going to pick up Moisés' son."
"We need to track this to identify whether it's Moisés or not. "
And we identified the arrival of a vehicle, a Fiat vehicle.
I remember this. A ten-year-old child left the residence.
He got in the car, and then the car left.
MAY, 2009 4 YEARS AFTER THE ROBBERY
This vehicle was followed by our teams to a building
in the Vila Mariana neighborhood of São Paulo.
We needed to confirm it was Moisés in there.
You couldn't see through the car's tinted windows.
We couldn't arrest anyone as we didn't know who was there.
For the day we followed him to the Vila Mariana neighborhood.
There he entered a bakery.
When he walked into the bakery, I jumped in line to get behind him.
At that point, we had a confirmation that it was Moisés.
We could confirm he was the owner of the car.
We called the headquarters.
I told them, "I believe I have the target in sight."
I asked them, "Are you sure?"
They asked, "What percentage of certainty?"
"95%."
He said, "Look, 95% is a lot. What if you're wrong?"
So, we proceeded to set up Moisés's arrest operation.
We always prepare for this process carefully.
It can't be messy or hasty.
We can't give the opportunity for an escape.
We noticed there were some apartments for rent.
I sent a couple there who were pretending to tour an apartment.
We did this because we didn't know
which apartment belonged to Moisés.
Our goal was to look at the parking garage
because usually parking spots have a number
that corresponds to the apartments.
In 2009, we scheduled a meeting.
Mr. Celso was there, along with me
and a fellow investigative journalist,
to closely monitor the arrest
of the last member of the Central Bank heist.
The invitation to become the agent's fiancée came up right there.
We said, "Wow. So, let's rent an apartment,
but three friends, two men and a woman?"
"That'll be weird."
So I said, "Can I be someone's fiancée or girlfriend? It'll seem more natural."
We stayed there about two hours.
We visited about three apartments.
I told the realtor, "I need to see what the parking garage looks like here."
And she said, "Okay, let's go."
We went to the parking garage, and recognized the car.
The agent called Mr. Celso and said, "The car is here."
My team was responsible for taking control
of the building's parking lot.
We decided to set up a situation where there was an accident,
a slight accident, in the parking lot.
What did we come up with there so we could call him?
We asked the doorman to tell him
another resident was backing out of the parking space and hit his car,
and they needed him to be there.
The building was an upscale building and there was a CCTV system.
A colleague was monitoring the cameras to see when he was coming,
and the rest of us were at different spots in the parking lot
to prevent him from escaping.
He came out wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt.
You could clearly see he wasn't armed.
From the moment Moisés came down
from the elevator to talk about the accident,
the team began to close in on him,
not giving him any chance for any kind of reaction.
"Moisés. Federal Police. You're under arrest."
And I perfectly recall him saying, "I thought you'd forgotten about me."
I said, "No, Moisés. We would never forget you."
Let me ask you something. Who were you closest with among them?
Mmm… I'm the kind of guy that makes friends anywhere I go,
We didn't find a substantial amount of money,
that made us think, "Oh, this is the money from the Central Bank heist."
We searched the apartment and found several luxury watches.
I remember seeing a box full of fancy and expensive watches.
We could tell he had good taste.
This one has over 100 grams of gold.
And talking to him, he was very calm.
It's a widower's life, right, sir? Nobody ever helped me, you know?
You have to get by, right?
He even said to me, "I'm glad you guys caught me."
"I was even thinking about turning myself in."
It was good to talk to him, because he said that by 9 a.m.
they had 164 million out of the vault.
But their plan was only 80 million.
And there, the most inexperienced wanted to take more money.
But they said "No, we planned to take 80 million,
and we already have 164."
Which, just out of curiosity, is equivalent to three tons of money.
It's like I always say, "When they took the first 50-reais note
over the 80 million they had originally planned on,
well, that's when they made their first mistake."
CENTRAL BANK ROBBERY
What usually happens when you plan a huge robbery?
You have your inside information.
Usually, you have co-opted someone,
or you've received information from someone.
"Oh, I know someone who can help us make a big robbery."
Because you need to finance an operation that big.
Look, most people were from São Paulo, or other states.
You need weapons.
You need backup support, you need to rent a place.
This all has to be planned out.
So, you even need to arrange funding for this operation.
Therefore, we thought that the drug trafficking
through the criminal organization, PCC,
which was engaged in drug trafficking by then,
could've funded the construction of the tunnel.
Although they want to have a monopoly on drug trafficking,
the PCC is not a communist party.
It allows for entrepreneurship,
That means each drug dealer runs their own business,
which is, as they say, their own shot.
And that's what happened there.
The money that came from the PCC drug dealers
came as an individual initiative,
a private investment for them to make the tunnel.
The mentors were, as far as we knew, Alemão, Moisés, and Fernandinho.
One of the main funders was Fernandinho,
who already had some resources, as he was a member of the criminal organization PCC.
OCTOBER 7TH, 2005 2 MONTHS AFTER THE ROBBERY
Police in São Paulo were quite familiar with Fernandinho.
He was a big drug dealer
and also a respected member of the PCC.
But due to the size of the Central Bank's heist,
people speculated that he took more than his fair share of the money.
He must've taken way more than the others since it drew everyone's attention to him.
The information we had about Fernandinho was that he had invested
300,000 dollars to build the tunnel…
…and as a result of that investment,
he received 25 million of the total money
stolen from the Central Bank.
One day, one of my sources called me and asked me,
"Are you aware of Fê's kidnapping?"
Fernandinho was kidnapped on Pinheiros Street.
He was with some partners.
He was removed from his car and thrown into another car.
The people introduced themselves as federal police officers
and took him away.
The family paid the ransom. But so far, the guy's still missing.
It was a reliable source.
I hung up the phone and called the head of the DEIC,
Godofredo Bittencourt.
I asked him-- not asked, I made a statement,
"Sir, I know Fernandinho was kidnapped. It happened this way."
He told me, "No, please, don't publish this."
"It'll hinder the investigation."
I said, "Sir, this guy is dead. It won't hinder anything."
If they paid the ransom and this guy is still missing, a bandit, he's dead.
They killed him. "No, what am I gonna do?"
I said, "He's dead, sir. I'm gonna publish that."
THE STATE OF S. PAULO CITY
Usually, we don't publish stories about a kidnapping in progress.
But I had been informed that he very, very likely had been killed.
That was the opinion of the family,
and also the opinion of the police officers who gave me information.
So, I had some assurance I wasn't putting anyone's life at risk.
On the contrary,
I was shedding light on something being dealt with backstage, right?
And due to the publication and its repercussions,
a policeman from the south of Minas contacted the São Paulo police,
saying, "Look, we found a body here."
From the description, it could be the guy you're looking for."
They went there, and it was the guy. It was Fê. And he was dead.
And then it turned into a scandal.
URGENT BRAZIL
Luiz Fernando Ribeiro was brutally beaten before dying.
Luis Fernando was a drug dealer and one of the financiers
of the plan to steal 164 million reais from the Central Bank in Fortaleza.
The thieves of Central Bank are now…
I decided to go to Camanducaia,
where the body was found,
to see the state of the body, and determine how he was killed,
because the body tells you a lot,
how many bullets he took and in which way.
The first thing to catch my attention was
that he had his pants down and had been shot in the butt cheek
This demonstrates, as we've often seen from experience,
a clear indication of execution.
See, the pants down and the shot kept him from running away.
Then, he was also shot him in the face.
Those are they used to call "check shots,"
the ones to make sure the victim is dead.
So, this was clearly an execution.
Two police officers participated in Fernandinho's kidnapping.
There was the participation of an informant,
and there was even the participation of lawyers.
We had the whole package,
and a dead bandit.
The police stole from the robber.
DEIC quickly rushed to resolve the case.
Some police officers were identified, an informant was identified.
And from what we learned later, the was informant killed,
and the owner of an auto agency had also been killed.
One of them was found inside the charred car.
We can imagine that he knew the officers who kidnapped him.
He knew the cops.
And the cops knew that after this extortion,
it's likely he could seek payback.
Fernandinho was in the upper echelon of São Paulo's criminal community.
So, they decided to kill him.
Coincidentally, the same lawyer who paid the ransom when Fernandinho was kidnapped
is the same one involved in the case of Paulo Sérgio and several others.
The version that Márcio gave
was that Fernandinho, Fê, had been kidnapped,
And that later, uh,
Márcio started to negotiate the payment of Fernandinho's release.
And then the versions don't match, right?
According to Márcio,
before the ransom payment, Márcio even spoke with Fernandinho
to get proof that he was still alive,
so that he could pay the ransom later.
Luis Fernando was kidnapped in front of this club on the 8th,
when he was in the company of 10 other members of the gang.
The police released the sketches of the kidnappers
and of the men who received the 2.2 million reais in ransom.
On the same day, Luis Fernando was executed.
They kidnapped him on Friday, the ransom payment was made on Saturday.
From Saturday to Sunday at dawn,
the body was found Sunday morning in Camanducaia.
That's Márcio's version,
But when I called the morgue
to find out if they could estimate his time of death,
they informed me that he had probably been killed more than 24 hours ago.
So, this version doesn't match the lawyer's.
DEAD FOR MORE THAN 24 HOURS
BEGINNINGS OF GREEN ABDOMINAL DISCOLORATION AND MARBLING
If he was killed 24 hours ago, he was killed before the ransom payment.
SISTER-IN-LAW OF HEIST SUSPECT KIDNAPPED
ANOTHER SUSPECT IN CB ROBBERY KIDNAPPED
We can see today that this crime
was sort of a curse for all of them
all of these criminals who had acted
in this super planned way.
LOCAL NEWS "LEAVE US ALONE"
Many robbers felt a kind of relief when they were arrested
because they didn't pay for it with their lives.
They felt it wouldn't end any other way
because if they were released,
they would always be potential victims of extortion.
Pedrão's a classic example of this extortion type.
Pedrão was at home and, at some point,
some individuals claiming to be police arrived,
asking him to give them the money from the Central Bank.
They found, I think, if I'm not mistaken,
on top of the closet, around 800,000 reais.
They took this money away.
Not only did they take the money,
they beat up Pedrão and his wife on top of it.
But it seems like they suspected he had more money, hidden somewhere,
so they returned to take the rest of his loot.
It was then that Pedrão told them,
"You can't keep extorting me. Just put me in jail!"
Instead, they left him 50 grand and told him to forget about it.
There was a chance that this was hot air,
but we started hearing the same thing from many of them.
When we compared and saw they were saying
the same things in different situations and places,
we could tell that it was probably true.
This shocked me a lot because we weren't used to that level of police corruption,
with that level of brutality on the part of the police
and with the insistence of the police on those same targets, you know?
According to relatives, the men had been missing for three days.
That weekend, the police arrived at the Sky Farm in rural Santa Isabel.
After some searching, investigators found the bodies inside this artisan well.
Márcio Markoski Simão and Quirino José Brito, both 27,
and Anselmo Oliveira Magalhães, 32, had their hands and feet tied
and had no gunshot wounds.
Anselmo, known as "Cebola,"
is accused of participating in the heist on the Central Bank of Fortaleza in 2005,
when 164 million reais were stolen.
They were killed by strangulation.
There are ligatures on the neck,
so it's pretty clear that they tied a string or a rope and strangled them.
I avoided going to regular places ordinary people went,
because I'd been arrested inside a restaurant.
I'd already been arrested at a mall.
If you go to the most expensive restaurant,
you won't bump into a police officer, like I did.
So, "Shall we grab a bite?" "Okay, let's go to a fancy place."
If, we paid 500 bucks for a dish, that was everything.
But I'd already gone to a cheap restaurant and suffered a much bigger loss, you know?
ORGANIZED CRIME INVESTIGATION DEPARTMENT
In one of the visits I had at DEIC,
they ended up helping us quite a bit.
I explained to these guys.
I said, "Look, I came from the Civil Police too."
"I know that the way of working's the same,
it's a little more agile and all that."
But it's a matter of corruption, extortion, and everything else.
If anybody from any institution crosses
into my investigation, as a participant
or as the architect of some extortion,
I'm sorry, but I'm not gonna give anyone a free pass.
8 MONTHS AFTER THE ROBBERY
We arrived there in São Paulo at the time of Carnival.
Chief Celso was in Brasília, and he centralized all the information.
We were one of the bases that passed the information onto him.
And then he called me, "Look, I received information here… from a woman,
a wife of one of the bandits. She lives in São Bernardo do Campo."
"I need you to check on her,
because the information is that she has money from the Central Bank heist."
And that woman was Liduína, married to Raimundo Laurindo, aka Neto,
one of the leaders of the gang.
He's in a cafeteria called "Milano," right in front of me."
"He's with another guy and a little boy, okay?"
Affirmative. If there's any movement,
we'll keep you informed of everything here for you to organize it.
Copy that.
During the surveillance, we found out he made contact with Liduína
saying that he was gonna meet some people at a restaurant in a city near São Paulo.
We then planned an operation to find him there, all the while he was "kidnapped,"
being extorted by some police officers.
Then another element emerged in the situation.
Jeovan, also from the Laurindo family.
-Hi. -Hi.
-What's up? -Here's the thing.
Uh…
I'm with those guys, you know?
They aren't exactly my friends.
-I know. -So, here's the thing…
I made an agreement, and I need 300 grand.
Ah.
Three hundred grand. You understand?
Can I get it today?
I mean, borrow it?
Damn. You're fucking up.
Be caught by those wimps. How do they know who you are?
I'm telling you, they know more than we figured.
I won't discuss it. I'm asking you if you can lend me the money.
I don't have it here.
There's no way. I have to travel to get it.
There's no way. Oh, wait a second.
But when? I can't go home or leave,
I have to stay with them.
What am I gonna do? I don't have it here.
Around 8 o'clock, you can tell them then.
Then, Jeovan went and got the money.
Suddenly… Neto called Liduína.
He told her he was captive and needed to get the money.
-Hello? -Hi.
-I'm at home. -Yeah. Exactly.
You left me waiting and I got burned.
I need you to get 50…
-What? -I need to borrow 50,
until 7 o'clock.
-Where are you? -Don't worry.
-I just need the money. -Okay.
I called there, and nothing's arrived yet.
-Look, pay attention! -Okay, where do I take it?
-I'll let you know. -Oh, my God.
-Okay. -Will you call me?
-Just leave the phone on. -Oh, shit.
The extortion was brokered by a lawyer.
Everything from the payment to where it was to be delivered,
and we were following all of this.
And we notice the carrier antenna that Neto's phone connected to
was the same as the São Bernardo's police station's.
Then we were like, "Is he captive inside the police station?"
He would say, "No, we're in the guy's office,"
Then he gave me the meeting place to deliver the money.
Hello?
-Hello. -Hi. Uh…
-You already there? -Hello?
-Hi. You already there? -Who's talking?
-This is Mr… the lawyer. -Oh, hi.
Say your name. They're listening to this.
Stay there, okay?
-Okay. -But look,
about the people who are going there, if you notice anything different,
tell the guys not to get involved, okay?
-Okay. -No, just listen!
One of these boys must know me.
Tell them I'll go alone,
and I have to get to a certain place by myself
And I'll get that boy, and I'm leaving, okay?
Okay.
There is a somewhat shady coexistence, let's say,
between some criminal lawyers from São Paulo, the police, and the bandits.
They all work together.
Because the bandits themselves already told the lawyer
which police officers normally asks for bribes, so they don't get arrested.
And we've even seen some situations
in which the lawyers were even playing for both teams.
He helps the police officer extort the bandit.
When we identified who the police officers were,
I reported them to Judge Danilo for the arrest.
POLICE NEGOTIATED RANSOM FOR CB SUSPECT
With Porto Alegre's tunnel case,
they were extorted even before they could carry out the crime.
1 YEAR AFTER THE ROBBERY
PORTO ALEGRE AUGUST, 2006
In other words, during their preparation, we'd learned
that some police officers were already extorting one of the members of the gang,
Alessandro,
who was the one responsible for the logistical support.
Alessandro had an open arrest warrant
which is a field day for corrupt police officers.
They continuously extort the bandit, who has to pay to not be arrested.
He always talked to his wife.
He saw police officers and told her, "They're here."
He not only knew they were police officers,
but he was acquainted with them.
He knew who was there prowling his house.
Hi?
-Hey, Magrelo. -Hi.
-Don't come here. Don't come here. -Yeah?
Yes. The guys are here, okay?
-You talking to them? -Yes.
-Who's there? -Uh… DEIC.
-Who? -DEIC.
-DEIC? -Yes.
-In your house? -Yes.
Holy shit.
They're talking to each other, making an arrangement, okay?
Okay, see ya.
In one of these follow-ups, we saw this team
from another police division at Alessandro's house.
Probably, one of the police officers on the street
recognized a Federal Police vehicle, our team, who was driving past there.
They approached our vehicle, approached aggressively,
holding their guns to intimidate us and check to see
if we were police officers or not.
Their suspicion was they could've been caught in extortion.
The police had paid him, apparently 400 or 500 thousand
that was going to be paid in a neighboring town.
We even tried to follow and arrest them, but we couldn't.
So, this caused us some concern.
And from there, we realized these same police officers were already
in the area around the building, doing surveillance,
trying to identify its exact location.
If there was an entry here from another division there for any purpose,
even for extortion purposes, that would end the operation.
So, for safety reasons, we decided to start the operation at that moment.
The financial loss caused by the Central Bank's heist
was the smallest among the others.
One hundred and sixty-four million is nothing compared
to the other crimes committed recently,
like the embezzlement of public funds, much greater than the former.
The great loss for the government and the society, in general,
was the social cost
connected to the Central Bank theft
Various other crimes followed as a result of it.
Like drug and gun trafficking, kidnapping, murdering,
and police corruption.
MAY, 2006 9 MONTHS AFTER THE ROBBERY
The wave of terror imposed by PCC members began on Friday.
First, the targets were police stations, their vehicles, and officers themselves.
Not even firefighters, forest guards,
prison guards and administration officials were spared.
The number of police officers murdered
while off-shift shows that the attackers had specific targets.
The escalation of violence also reached the countryside.
At least 20 cities suffered attacks.
Police officers, guards and agents needed to contain rebellions.
The third day of chaos caused
by the attacks attributed to the PCC started early.
Motorbikers hurled Molotov cocktails at empty buses,
leaving the country's largest city with a lack of transport.
At that time, there was still no connection
between Central Bank's stolen money
and the attacks that occurred in May of 2006.
It was something new, but I was convinced
that the relationship between them was very strong.
I was pretty sure that if it wasn't the only reason,
without a doubt it was one of the main reasons for the attacks.
CB HEIST LEADER PARTNERS WITH PCC IN CRIMINAL ACTS
POLICE IDENTIFY TWO MORE SUSPECTS AT SECURITY BUSINESS
When you become a criminal and start to commit major crimes,
crimes that earn you relevant assets,
you can expect that one day you will be arrested,
and you will be a victim of the crime of extortion.
I'm with those guys. They aren't exactly friends.
-Who's there? -Uh… DEIC.
-DEIC? -Yes.
Holy shit!
What actually happened during the months that followed the theft
was that the bandits in São Paulo had more money than ever.
LOCAL CB HEIST FINANCED SP ATTACK
If kidnapping a bandit didn't get the expected results that they expected,
then they started kidnapping close relatives.
Mothers, wives, and kids.
Sons of bitches!
The guys went there.
They broke into the apartment there. Total humiliation.
Mess with our family,
they'll be in serious trouble for the rest of their lives.
It's already moving. That's what you don't get.
I'm saying it's for the money. Wanna talk?
It's on us. We're on a roll. It's on us, right?
Respect our families. No one unarmed died, you know?
No, but they don't give a damn. Do you know who they are?
-Who? -State police and special forces.
Yes, but they also have families.
-They have everything. -Let's mess with them.
Let's do it.
Yes, I mean they went to my mother's house.
So you're on, bro.
The ball's in their court now. They'll decide.
Yeah, yeah. Okay, see ya.
The Federal Police had already been monitoring the possibility
of something like this happening.
If we heard a gang was leaving now to kill police officers in such a place,
we could do something.
But we couldn't identify every case.
The guys said, "Oh, we went there and killed two."
We only found out later they'd killed two police officers.
-Hi. -Hi.
What's up? How're things?
-Mad crazy. -They attacked that station?
-I think it was that one. -Wow!
They killed two people?
Looks like there were two killed. The kid came to warn me.
It just happened.
At that first moment,
the attacks were attributed to the transfer
of important prisoners to tougher prisons.
It was certainly the last straw.
Like, "They're doing lots of things,
and now they're going to transfer them."
"You know what? Enough!"
Before the new wave of attacks, the State Department of Corrections
transferred more than 700 prisoners to President Venceslau's prison,
all of them connected to PCC.
This issue of the "Violent May"
that occurred might have been also motivated by other things,
but to a smaller degree of importance, than the transfer of the prisoners.
'Cause, from the moment they found out the leaders were gonna be transferred,
they started planning.
So, obviously, in this cauldron with many ingredients,
this is one more component,
but not the main factor causing it to happen.
The Central Bank's heist's connected with several crimes
and with several stories of crime, including some that are still unfolding.
The Central Bank's characters aren't dead.
They're part of this great network of criminality we live in.
There were two suspects that we were unable effectively to arrest,
although we had already properly identified them
and their participation in the crime had already been proven.
Antonio Artenho da Cruz, aka Bode,
and Juvenal Laurindo, who had two nicknames, "Carca" or "Valquimar."
Coincidentally, they were in Boa Viagem city. They never left there.
And on two or three occasions, we set up operations to arrest them.
And they escaped due to minor details.
We tried to arrest Bode at his father's house twice.
He was there, but in a split second, unexpectedly, he escaped.
The same with Juvenal.
I went with Nicodemus to Boa Viagem,
me as a cattle buyer, him as a hammock seller.
Our interest was to find out if Juvenal was there,
because Juvenal's family is very well-known.
Everyone knows them there.
He was in a rural area about 50 kilometers from the city.
So, any vehicle that entered this rural area,
this main road that gave access,
was seen by scouts… who warned them… so he could escape.
They had a strategy of rewarding and frightening ordinary people.
The people who helped them were favored with small cash grants.
Those who didn't help them were threatened with death.
We got a search and seizure and an arrest warrant.
We set up a very well-planned operation. It was planned for almost a week.
We found out that at about 5 a.m.
a truck was used to pick up farmworkers and drive them to the fields.
We found out which truck it was.
We found an identical model
so no one would be suspicious of noise from a different engine…
…and dressed our team up as farmworkers, with sickles and stuff.
When we got close, we started walking.
We weren't gonna go in with the truck.
Nobody talks, nobody uses their cell phones.
When we arrived, we saw the houses.
One of them had the light on,
the one in which Juvenal would, in theory, be sleeping.
There was a hammock on the porch.
At a distance, we realized that there could be someone there.
Then, we went slowly. When we got closer,
a donkey started braying
Then another one started. So, we had to rush.
People got stuck in the barbed wire. It was a mess.
We got close to the house.
Nicodemus put his hand in the hammock and said,
"Boss, he just got out of the hammock. It's still warm."
We found only the hammock, still hanging.
Juvenal had gone into the woods again. And, to this day, he's still at large.
His name's been known for nearly 15 years.
Juvenal Laurindo, born in Ceará, from Boa Viagem, is now 52 years old.
He is the only person accused of involvement in the Central Bank theft
who has never been arrested.
Our report found that the court issued a document in favor of Juvenal Laurindo.
This document served to cancel the arrest warrant that had been filed against
the accused due to the penalty imposed for the theft from the Central Bank.
Thus, he cannot be arrested
until there is another determination.
The decision was based on an appeal
the defense presented to the Supreme Court.
Antônio da Cruz, the Bode,
located by the team RAIO at the end of 2018,
in a rural area of Boa Viagem,
had never been arrested before.
Finding the whereabouts of a fugitive in an almost uninhabited area
in the middle of the hinterland,
which has a geography that facilitates escapes,
was one of the difficulties faced
by both the Federal Police and the State Police forces.
I think if there is a successful case in the history of Brazilian justice,
that case is the Central Bank,
which was an extremely, highly complex case.
Very difficult.
And I always like to emphasize that we have very low self-esteem.
We always think the police cannot reveal the facts,
Justice cannot punish properly,
prosecutors don't do their part.
And in that case, everything was resolved. There is no doubt about anything relevant.
INVESTIGATION WAS TRIGGERED BY PREPAID PHONE CARD FOUND
FORTALEZA HOME HID 12,000 REAIS TAKEN FROM CB
What we were able to see was the following:
Alemão wanted to carry out a big theft in Fortaleza,
inspired by what he'd done before there, at Corpvs.
When looking for former partners in crime there,
such as Deusimar and others,
he was told that he could do it at the Central Bank.
By these contacts, Fernandinho and Velho David joined in.
Then they started thinking, "Who's an expert in building tunnels?"
Then they remembered Pedrão.
They thought they would need, as police say, a 171.
That he would be the person responsible for being the manager of the company.
And they remembered Jorge Luiz, who became known as Paulo Sérgio
And who was responsible for managing everything?
Alemão and Fernandinho,
the ones who were funding it, and Moisés, as a coordinator.
So, basically, those were the roles of each player.
People often think the police weren't victorious
because they couldn't recover the 164 million.
"Well, so, if they stole 164 million and arrested everyone, where's the money?"
The money that actually was recovered, was in fact, was very little.
But they spent a lot of money. This is expected in money-laundering.
You spend a huge amount of resources to get a small portion of clean money.
-A lot of money here. -There it is.
Central Bank's money.
Here are the documents for the properties.
Contracts, deeds.
All buried along with the money.
Not to mention
the money lost to extortion and the amount they actually spent.
Taking that into account and considering the amount we were able to seize,
I declare this operation to be successful.
OF THE 164.7 MILLION STOLEN, AROUND 32.5 MILLION REAIS WERE RECOVERED,
20 MILLION IN CASH AND 12.5 MILLION WITH THE AUCTIONING OF SEIZED ASSETS.
They expected to carry out a huge theft…
They didn't know exactly how much there was,
but they knew that it was tons of money.
About the risk if they were caught, they would be charged for theft.
The penalty wouldn't be that severe.
So, I think they followed this logic
and forgot about the other crimes like money laundering and conspiracy.
Judge Danilo originally convicted all defendants of money laundering
with multiple counts.
That is, the charges are added for each crime of money laundering.
Thus, if someone buys a home appliance, it's considered one crime.
Then, they buy a motorcycle, a second crime.
A car, a third crime, and so on.
There was a defendant who, for example, faced 20 charges, like Raimundo Laurindo.
So he was initially sentenced to 170 years.
for money laundering, conspiracy, and theft.
IN ALL, 129 PEOPLE WERE CHARGED
FOR DIRECT PARTICIPATION IN THE ROBBERY OR MONEY LAUNDERING.
CLOSE TO 500 PEOPLE TESTIFIED.
THE COMBINED SENTENCES TOTALED 2,452 YEARS.
In this specific case, the money laundering occurred,
in my understanding, in completely different circumstances of time and place.
So, a person bought a gas station somewhere,
laundered a part of the money.
After two or three months, they bought a farm in Mato Grosso.
Another completely different crime, so the sentences are added up.
RAIMUNDO LAURINDO BARBOSA NETO 170 YEARS
So, that's why the sentences were long at the trial court level,
because it was considered multiple counts of money laundering
with organized crime as antecedent.
At the time, organized crime was given by the Palermo Convention,
of which Brazil is a signatory,
among several other countries in the world,
whose objective is to fight against organized crime.
And it defines a criminal organization as a group of people, of four or more people,
who meet repeatedly and commit various crimes.
At the time, the Law for Organized Crimes didn't exist.
Judge Danilo himself applied an international law to a national case.
So from that, there was even an effort to create this law here in Brazil.
It was created eventually, but it couldn't be applied retroactively.
THE PALERMO CONVENTION AGAINST TRANSNATIONAL ORGANIZED CRIME
DEFINES A CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION AS AT LEAST THREE PEOPLE WHO,
FOR A GIVEN TIME, COMMIT ONE OR MORE SERIOUS CRIMES TOGETHER.
In 2013, a new Brazilian law on criminal organization emerged,
which defines criminal organization
in much the same way as the Palermo Convention does.
And then a technicality was pointed out, and the Supreme Court ended up deciding
in a way that favored a lot all the people who would have been sentenced
for crimes committed by a criminal organization.
The Supreme Court understood that
from 2013 onward it would be possible to classify a crime as organized crime.
Due to this change, the sentences in this case were revised,
and then penalties were drastically reduced.
SC RULING BENEFITED MORE THAN 80 CB PERPETRATORS
APPEALS JUDGE CLAIMS SC RULING WAS FOLLOWED
We're still dealing with related occurrences,
like asset issues, which were hugely complex
due to their incredible volume and range,
spread all over Brazil.
Just recently, I had an issue like that, relating to a property in Mato Grosso.
These are problems that take time to be solved.
There are third parties who acted in good faith when buying a property.
There is a whole complex chain
involving straw men buying properties to resell later.
It's a story I'm not proud of. For me, it's in the past.
As they say, "Crime doesn't pay." It truly doesn't.
if you're not the only one who pays for it.
Many times, it's you, your kids, your mother.
A lot of other people pay for your acts, so it's not worth it.
If it was only me who paid for my acts, okay.
But many times it's not.
Your family suffers a lot.
The story has to be told differently now.
Regardless of the life I had,
I'm providing my children with a good education. Understand?
I tell them to be honest.
"You don't need anything 'cause you have your daddy to give you things.
I never want you to take anything from anyone,
as it's a bad life habit.
DOZENS OF TUNNELS TARGETING FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS' VAULTS
WERE FOUND ACROSS BRAZIL AND PARAGUAY,
IN THE YEARS FOLLOWING THE FORTALEZA HEIST.
Now the goal was even bolder. One billion reais.
The criminals' goal wasn't far away, about 500 meters in a straight line.
From there to the Pinheiros riverside, where the Banco do Brasil building is.
This round building that appears
at the front is the cash distribution center of Banco do Brasil.
The banking complex has five vaults,
each one has around one billion reais inside.
The target was one of these vaults.
The floor even cracked nearby due to the excavation of the tunnel
that was already there, under the safe.
We had a goal: it was to identify 100% of the people who committed the crime
and at least 60% in jail.
That was our goal.
We met our goal of 100% identification. They were all identified.
And the 60% in prison? We imprisoned a lot more.
The Central Bank's theft was carried out by 34 men.
To arrest 34 men, we had to arrest more than 100 other
people who committed the related crimes of money laundering and extortion.
There are many myths created around this crime.
For example, that there were qualified people, engineers,
an international financier, that have never been disclosed.
This is just imagination.
Everyone involved was identified, prosecuted, and judged.
There is no doubt about that.
We're still here waiting, trying to figure it out,
me with my "obsession,"
trying to figure out what these people's next move will be,
both those guys we arrested and those we'd eventually arrest,
and those guys we're still gonna arrest.
About the Central Bank heist, it's my former-slash-future investigation.
I have no doubt, the way we see it, most of them will go back to crime
when they get out, and we'll be here, prepared to investigate again.