Thieves gained access to runway area to steal the cash.Six months after a band of armed thieves stole US $2.4 million worth of United States and Canadian dollars in just three minutes at Guanajuato International Airport, the crime remains unsolved.
Even though the brazen heist took place in a federal zone, the federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) delegated the investigation to its counterpart in Guanajuato, the newspaper Milenio reported on Friday. Neither state nor federal authorities have provided an update about the progress of the probe.
On the night of Wednesday, April 3, between six and eight men carried out what one former security official described as “the perfect robbery.”
Using a truck disguised with a fake Aeroméxico logo, the men breached security to enter the runway area, where they intercepted an airport service vehicle that was in the process of delivering the cash to a waiting plane.
The money had arrived at the airport in a PanAmericano armored truck in order to be sent to Mexico City.
The armed men stole 14 of 18 bags of cash from a sole unarmed PanAmericano guard and two airport employees traveling across the tarmac in a luggage transport vehicle.
The thieves then loaded the money into their truck, drove to the perimeter of the airport property and escaped through a wire fence in which a large opening had been cut.
Airport operator Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico said in a statement that the thieves entered the airport, carried out the robbery and left within a period of three minutes.
Shortly after the incident, police found the truck that was used and recovered two of the stolen bags of cash. They later found two more bags of cash in another abandoned vehicle.
Juan Miguel Alcántara Soria, former head of the National Public Security System, claimed that “the perfect robbery” was made possible by “flaws” of the authorities responsible for providing security at the airport – the Federal Police outside the facility and the army in the terminal and runway area.
When the robbery occurred, military personnel were in the baggage collection area. By the time they realized what had happened, the thieves had already left the airport. Federal and state police as well as the army conducted a joint search but made no arrests.
Alcántara told Milenio that the Guanajuato office of the FGR, not state authorities, should be carrying out the investigation into the crime, adding that the absence of progress in the case is an example of the kind of impunity that plagues Guanajuato and the whole country.
Source: Milenio (sp)
