Brazil airport thieves snatch $1.7m

Sao Paolo has a serious crime problem

By Stephen Cviic in Sao Paolo

Armed men have burst into Sao Paulo city airport and stolen three million reals ($1.7m) from an aeroplane.

It was an astonishingly audacious and professional robbery. The airport is in the city centre and is used by thousands of mainly-domestic passengers every day.

Ten men - armed with automatic rifles and machine-guns and carrying radios and mobile phones - arrived at the passenger terminal at 0800 local time (1100 GMT) on Thursday.

They overpowered security guards and made their way onto the runway in four vehicles.

There they surrounded a small plane about to take off for the town of Aracatuba, 470km (290 miles) north-west of Sao Paulo.

They seized sacks containing the cash from the plane and made their exit. The whole operation lasted only a few minutes.

Investigation

One man, believed to be a passenger on another plane, was grazed by a bullet, but other than that, there were no injuries.

Police are investigating the robbery, which was clearly well-planned.

Brazil does not have a problem with terrorism and, by international standards, airport security is unobtrusive.

But Sao Paulo does have a serious problem with crime and the authorities may have to start thinking about how to defend airports from a new and unwelcome form of armed robbery.