5. The Banco Central Burglary
Stolen: $71.6 million
Guinness Book of World Records once named the 2005 Banco Central robbery in Fortaleza, Brazil, as the world’s largest bank robbery.
A 25-member gang set up a phony landscaping firm to pull it off. They dug a 256-foot tunnel up through the bank’s vault floor over the course of three months.
They broke into the building and took six containers containing 160 million Brazilian reals ($71.6 million in 2005). Only eight persons were apprehended, and only 20 million real were found.