Marcos hopes to auction them off as memorabilia of the heist.The crime team from Fortaleza's O Povo newspaper, which recently won the Brazilian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize for its investigative work on the Central Bank story, made a number of breakthroughs in the case ahead of the police, including the discovery of the house where the money was divided up before being taken out of Fortaleza.At the courthouse, 13 men are on trial for their part in the crime. There was once that he told me he was doing some work at the Central Bank, but I didn't suspect anything, because there was no mess."On the rear balcony, the tower of the Central Bank is in clear view. The owner, Marcos, is a wild-eyed voluble guy who would not be out of place hustling on the streets of New York city."A guy called Paulo Sergio turned up in a van and the place stayed closed for 15 days," he said. "Then he brought some workers, put up the awning and opened up his artificial lawn business."Up a rickety staircase that leads to the roof, Marcos excitedly pulls slate tiles from the neighbouring building.
Through the rafters, bags of earth are visible, stacked on top of each other."The one who was being very friendly to everyone around here was called Paulo Sergio. Unsurprisingly, the Central Bank was deeply embarrassed by the publicity surrounding the robbery and refused to comment.But in the nearby streets, next door to the artificial lawn business from where the thieves purported to operate, is a seedy hotel. But when night falls, a different Fortaleza emerges, still beautiful, but with a sizzling underbelly of sleaze fuelled by a huge sex tourism problem. The scene of the crime, a tall brown glass skyscraper in the commercial district of the city, is one of nine regional offices of the Banco Central do Brasil, the Brazilian equivalent of the Bank of England, which controls the flow and supply of money within the economy.When people talked of the crime being victimless, it was because the stolen money had already been withdrawn from circulation, and was therefore taken not from private accounts but, in effect, from the economy itself. On further investigation it became clear that Fernando was also a big-time drug trafficker and killer.For Fernando, though, the wheel had turned full circle. Thirteen days later, his bullet-ridden body was found in farmland several hundred miles from Sao Paulo. Investigations later led to the arrest of two police officers for their alleged involvement in the kidnapping.Marcio was understandably nervous.
The kidnap and murder of Fernando could hardly be considered an isolated event. In 2004 alone, 49,587 people were murdered in Brazil, and that rate continues to grow.In sunny Fortaleza, it is hard to imagine such atrocity The spectacular beaches seem like a kind of paradise. The kidnappers departed promising their hostage would arrive later, but Fernando never returned.In desperation, Fernando's family turned to the police, and revealed they believed he had been kidnapped because he helped finance the Central Bank thieves (such an elaborate robbery had significant overheads), and had received many millions in return. They had received a ransom demand and wanted Marcio to act as intermediary.Marcio met the kidnappers at a suburban petrol station, where they allowed him to speak to Fernando via a walkie-talkie before he handed over more than one million reis (£246,000). But soon after the investigation began events had turned darker.On 8 October, exactly two months after the robbery was discovered; 26-year-old Luiz Fernando Ribeiro was kidnapped outside a nightclub in a suburb of Sao Paulo.A few hours later Marcio Marcio, a key defence lawyer acting in the case, received a panicked call from Fernando's family. Thirteen suspects had been arrested, and about 11 per cent of the stolen money recovered.
