Heist Fever

Business is booming at banks

Inflation, devaluation and near economic collapse have reduced the buying power of Brazil's cruzeiro by 26.4% over the past six months. But in Sao Paulo (pop. 12 million), the country's financial capital, the currency has gained in popularity with a certain class of entrepreneurs: stickup men, who are carrying cruzeiros away in record amounts. Bank offices in Sao Paulo have been held up more than 700 times so far this year, nearly double the 1982 pace. Though bankers are reluctant to disclose their losses, one government estimate puts the 1983 haul at about $6 million.

The epidemic has turned Brazilian banks into virtual shooting galleries. Dozens of innocent bystanders have been killed in the gunplay. Authorities say that in one notorious incident, Franklin Pedro da Silva was holding up a Sao Paulo bank when he was distracted by a crying baby. "Shut it up or I'll kill it!" he reportedly shouted, then summarily executed the eight-month-old infant and its mother with a pistol.

The public outcry prompted Sao Paulo Governor Andre Franco Montoro to declare a "permanent war against crime." One of his first moves was to authorize the purchase of 262 new police cars to help catch more criminals in the act. Some financial institutions now have as many as 100 armed guards on the payroll. Bank lobbies feature turret-like booths with small slots for keeping rifles trained on potential thieves. According to Geraldo Vidigal, a lawyer for the Federation of Brazilian Bank Associations, these armored guardhouses initially provided "a certain psychological deterrent," but ultimately proved useless. Once a robbery is under way, says Roberto Salgado, director of the Brazilian Association of Guard and Security Companies, "most banks instruct the guards not to shoot where there's a chance of losing a customer or a teller." Perhaps as a result, guards often find themselves forced at gunpoint to turn over their arms to the robbers, who have harvested hundreds of weapons so far this year.

The rash of robberies is especially disruptive in a nation like Brazil, where few people use credit cards, and utility bills and taxes cannot be paid by mail. Frustrated law-enforcement officials blame the courts for not keeping bank robbers behind bars. At the same time, however, many officials agree that the problem is rooted in Sao Paulo's rampant unemployment and the low wages that are symptoms of Brazil's ailing economy. "We've had an awesome demographic explosion, with people flooding into the big cities looking for gold in the streets," said Jorge Miguel, a Sao Paulo police official. "When they don't find it, crime goes up." qed This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.