The Robbery on the Bank of the Republic (in Spanish: Asalto al Banco de la República), also known as The robbery of the century in Colombia (In Spanish: El robo del siglo en Colombia), was a robbery perpetrated on October 16 to 17, 1994 against a branch of the Bank of the Republic (the central bank of Colombia), located in Valledupar (a city in Northern Colombia) and in which the thieves took the sum of just over 24 billion Colombian pesos (US$33 million). The robbery was the largest amount stolen in paper currency in the history of Colombia.
After the robbery, the Banco de la República identified the stolen banknotes by their serial number and denomination, which had not entered into circulation to the public prior to the robbery, so they immediately lost their value. The bank published a list of the series ranges of the stolen bills and they came to be jokingly called los billetes vallenatos (The vallenato bills).
Preparations
The plan to robbery the Banco de la República in Valledupar was devised 8 months earlier, but started in June 1994, three months before committing the robbery, by Benigno Suárez Rincón and commanded by Alexánder Flórez Salcedo. Then Lt. Juan Carlos Carrillo Peña and Jaime Bonilla Esquivel were recruited for the robbery operation. They collected information from the bank's surveillance. Bonilla and National Police lieutenants Juan Carlos Carrillo Peña and César Augusto Barrera Caicedo met in Alfonso López Square to specify details of the robbery plan.
Bonilla asked Lt. Juan Carlos Carrillo Peña the details of the bank building in Valledupar and the security scheme that protected the place. 20 days later, Carrillo delivered the information about the security scheme to Bonilla.
The main financier of the robbery, Elkin Susa, bought the welding equipment in Canada for US$22,000 and paid for the training of 3 of the robbers in Bogotá to operate the equipment and destroy the vault. Days before starting the robbery, on October 13, 1994, the assailants sent two sophisticated welding equipment, tools, and several oxygen tanks from Cali to Valledupar to destroy the security systems of the bank vaults.
Bonilla met again in Valledupar with Lt. Carrillo at noon on Saturday, October 15. Then they held another meeting in which Bonilla, Carrillo, and Second Lieutenant Barón were present at 6:00 PM, where Bonilla explained that the robbery would take place the following day, Sunday, October 16. It is not clear if the robbery was already in progress and Bonilla wanted to mislead the two policemen. Bonilla assigned Lieutenants Carrillo and Barrera and Second Lieutenant Varón to patrol the vicinity of the bank on Sunday and early Monday morning. Bonilla specified that if the bank's alarm was activated, the other policemen appeared to attend to it, they would have to mislead saying that routine maintenance was being carried out inside the bank. Bonilla handed out some radios to the officers. Second Lieutenant Varón was ordered to move his patrol 10 meters away to facilitate the entry of the truck into the bank, without alerting other police officers.
Bonilla ordered the gang of 14 assailants, led by 'Camilo', 'El Chema' and 'El Pana', to spend the night inside the Colchoflex mattress store, owned by Ociel Echeverry López, to whom they offered $50 million pesos.
The robbery
The robbery began on Sunday, October 16, 1994, at 6:00 AM, during the beginning of a holiday weekend. The assailants arrived in a red Dodge 600 truck that they parked outside of the bank. The assailants had the excuse that they had to repair the air conditioners in the bank building. An hour later, the assailants opened the garage door and drove the truck into the building. Suárez Rincón and Bonilla Esquivel, settled in rooms 202 and 306 of the Sicarare Hotel, which overlooked the bank, from where they coordinated the robbery operation using radios.