Ya gotta love Buenos Aires

i was here when this story was unfolding... come to find out, buenos aires has had numerous instances of tunneling bank robbers, so much so that many banks have installed seismic devices to detect underground disturbances... but the crooks described in this story were obviously masters of their craft... the getaway tunnel which led to the rio del la plata was even equipped with a boat... the gang was filmed on security cameras but they were, of course, carefully disguised... but, more than that, they never addressed each other by name, only calling out a meaningless code word when getting someone's attention... they also moved around only in fits and starts, like robots, to avoid being characterized by stride, gait or body conformation...

The hostage standoff was stretching into its seventh hour, with hundreds of police officers surrounding the bank. After negotiating a peculiar swap -- four hostages for some pizzas and sodas -- the captors inside seemed suspiciously quiet. So police stormed the building.

They found the 19 remaining hostages safe and sound, but the captors had vanished. A hole in the basement wall was covered with an iron lid that had been bolted shut from the other side. Later, police discovered that the hole led to a secret tunnel, which hooked into a municipal drainage system that emptied into the La Plata River. It was a clean getaway.

"Until now, in the history of Argentina there has never been a band of thieves that's had the audacity, the logistics, the preparation and the luck that this group of criminals had," a Buenos Aires provincial police investigator, Osvaldo Seisdedos, told reporters after the heist three weeks ago.

needless to say, the thieves are already the stuff of legend...

"Everyone I know is talking about it and saying the same thing -- that the people who did it are geniuses," said Salvador Peluso, 37, who works at a water-sports store across the street from the bank. "They robbed a bank without a single gunshot being fired and got away with everything. It's like a good movie."

but, while you're chuckling, keep in mind... this is argentina, not the u.s...

Many Argentines avoid bank accounts because of the financial sector's tumultuous recent history. Before the nation's economy collapsed in 2001, the value of the Argentine peso equaled the U.S. dollar's. Those who had deposited their dollars in savings accounts watched their fortunes largely disappear overnight -- the banks converted the money to pesos at the time of the collapse, and the pesos immediately lost most of their value. Throughout the country, many people vowed never to put another cent in a bank account.

In last month's crime, bank cash accounted for about $200,000 of the millions stolen, according to bank officials; the vast majority of the plunder came from the privately held boxes.

"Safe-deposit boxes seem to be an Argentine habit because people understand that banks are very insecure here," said Nydia Zingman, an attorney representing dozens of the robbery victims.

and, yes, the bank IS responsible - maybe, eventually, let's hope... and, just in case you're interested, it was a branch of banco rio...

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