"
It will not be the one of the century, but it is the one of the millennium
" (sic).
The message from the thieves at Banco Macro's Congreso branch in March 2010 tried to link this coup with the one that had shocked the country four years earlier, when a gang carried out a cinematographic robbery at Banco Río de Acassuso.
It happened in the building at 264 Callao Avenue, just over two blocks from the National Congress.
It started around 10 p.m. on Saturday, March 6, and ended at 7:17 a.m. on Sunday, March 7, when the alarm was activated.
At the branch, the criminals looted 99 safe deposit boxes, taking loot estimated by the Justice at between 25 and 30 million dollars, which was never recovered.
The message on one of the walls of the bank located at 200 Callao Avenue. Photo Archive
Now, 13 years later, the trial against three suspects has begun.
This is a former deputy commissioner of the Federal Police (PFA), his driver and the manager of a building.
According to Télam, the debate began last Friday before Judge Carlos Rengel Mirat, of the Oral Criminal Court (TOC) 26 of the Federal Capital, at 1526 Paraguay Street.
The accusation is in the hands of the attorney general for the trial, Diana Goral, and the assistant prosecutor, Marina Narváez.
There are three defendants who came to this trial in freedom, but
none of them is one of the thieves -never identified-, who were inside the bank
.
The cover of Clarín when the millionaire coup in the Banco Macro's Congress branch was known, in March 2010.
This is the former deputy commissioner of the PFA Marcelo Amarilla, at that time deputy chief of the then 5th police station.
of Congress;
his driver and also his police officer, former corporal Omar Mikic;
and Rolando Pedro Quiroga Pardo, who was in charge of the Argentine Institute of Safety and Hygiene, the adjacent building from where the boqueteros entered the bank.
The accusation for the three is that of being co-authors of an "
aggravated robbery for having been committed in a town and in a gang
", a crime that
provides for a sentence of three to ten years in prison
, although in the case of the police, for having belonged to a security force, the criminal scale increases by a third, with a minimum of four years and a maximum of more than 12.
According to judicial sources, the hypothesis that prosecutor Goral will try to prove in the debate is that policemen Amarilla and Mikic "
liberated the area
" and gave cover to the gang from abroad.
In the case of the doorman Quiroga Pardo, he is accused of having "
facilitated the access
" of the gang to the building where he worked so that they make a hole, and then pretended that he had been taken hostage along with his son, who was also accused in the case but later it was dismissed, and a young man in a street situation to whom the thieves when they fled, threw a wad with about 5,000 dollars that were thrown on a staircase.
One of the holes made by the thieves.
Photo File
The case is known as "The Robbery of the Millennium" because emulating the authors of the so-called "Robbery of the Century" at Banco Río de Acassuso that occurred in 2006, in this fact the thieves also left a mocking phrase for the investigators: "It will not be
the of the century, but it is that of the millennium
" (sic).
According to the request for trial - to which
Télam
had access -, which was formulated by the investigating prosecutor Eduardo Rosende, successor in the case of the original prosecutor, Viviana Fein, 256 safe deposit boxes were violated, but only 99 chests were looted by criminals, who seized cash, jewelry, gold bars, documents and other valuables.
A judicial source assured that taking into account not only the cash, but also the value of the jewels and other objects,
the loot was calculated at "between 25 and 30 million dollars"
, of which nothing was ever recovered.
For the prosecution, some members of the gang first entered the headquarters of the Safety and Hygiene Institute, at Callao 262, where Quiroga Pardo works as manager, and from there they went to the teachers' room on the first floor, from where they carried out a first hole in the ground, perforating the ceiling of the ground floor of the bank branch.
The message to customers after the millionaire coup.
Photo File.
The gang had at least one alarm specialist member, who managed to "bridge" the devices so that they would not activate and disable the siren.
Then, with their faces covered with balaclavas and diverting the focus of the security cameras, they moved to the basement of the bank.
There, after circumventing some doors, they made another hole that allowed them to enter the vault, where they broke into the safe deposit boxes and fled with the loot.
As for Amarilla and Mikic, the prosecution maintains in its request that it was discovered that they provided coverage to the gang based on the interchange of calls and a key video that filmed them during the early morning of the robbery and the following morning and afternoon. , in a garage located on Sarmiento and Riobamba streets, with the HT team on police frequency.
In total, they ransacked 99 safe deposit boxes.
Clarin Archive.
"During the execution of the plan, their condition as police gave them
a complete knowledge of the area
and the possibility of noticing a possible police intervention," says the accusation.
And he adds: "While the safe deposit boxes were broken into, the co-defendants waited near the bank, despite the fact that they were free from duty and resided in the towns of Florencio Varela and Merlo, in order to provide foreign support, at least through the use of the apparatus that allowed to listen to the police modulations of the jurisdiction".
In the videos, it is even observed that the two policemen arrive with bags that are believed to contain part of the loot and at another moment they give each other "
a hug
", something that the prosecutor Rosende interpreted in his request as a celebration for "the end and the success of the criminal task".
What did the defendants say?
In their inquiries during the investigation, Amarilla and Mikic explained that that night they first went to have dinner with their wives at a pizzeria and then at a pool in Congress because as police officers in the area they were not charged;
and that they were in the garage at dawn because the corporal's wife felt bad and they took her to lie down in the car.
Later, Amarilla said that he went to a hotel to stay with his wife and Mikic that he took his wife to his house, although the next morning they both returned to the same parking lot, the corporal because he was doing security work for a businessman on the block and the deputy commissioner because they had notified the bank of the robbery.
The security operation at the scene after the fact.
Photo File.
The prosecution described the defendants' account as "
crude, grotesque, simply unbelievable
".
In turn, he took as a "strong indication" against Amarilla the fact that, the month after the robbery, he acquired a property in Merlo.
According to the sources, at the first trial hearing, Amarilla and Mikic refused to testify, but warned that they would do so later.
As for the manager of the building, Quiroga Pardo, he did testify and maintained his position that he was never related to the robbery and that he was a victim of the gang and taken hostage, when he went down to open the delivery man for a pizza he had ordered.
The statement of 22 witnesses is scheduled and the hearings will be held every Friday.
EMJ
look too
Héctor "Tito" Rima, the incredible story of the scammer who gave the great coup of the century and got away with it
The hidden plot of millionaire robberies made by a transporter of funds to Banco Galicia, McDonald's and Codere