Prior to the robbery, the three thieves had plenty of time to plan and source their respective hiding places and, unknown to each other, they all came up with completely different ideas. The small lock-up garage Pedro had hired to stash his share was just under three miles away from his flat in the Villa Lugano district. It was positioned at the end of a run of ten garages located in a quiet cul-de-sac, which rarely saw any traffic. It was close to midnight when Pedro steered the white transit van into the garage and, as there were no street lamps, his only source of light came from the headlights. As he made the thirty-minute walk back to his flat, he mused he had sourced the most unremarkable location possible. The garage’s owner had insisted on a year’s rental upfront and Pedro had no intention of paying for a second year.

As a young man, Sebastian Ramos had worked as an apprentice carpenter before turning his attention to crime. His skills proved very handy when it came to creating a novel hiding place for his share of the haul. Sebastian lived in a small one-bed basement flat in Barrio Soldati, a rundown neighbourhood located in the south-west of the city and, before the robbery took place, he began carefully lifting up the old pine floorboards in his living room. They rested on wooden joists that ran lengthways across the room and were about four feet apart. He calculated the gaps between them were wide enough, and just about deep enough, to provide a safe haven for the valuables he planned to steal.

Sebastian used twelve-inch-wide strips of chipboard to create a smooth base underneath the wooden floor so the cloth bags could rest on a clean surface. His estimates were spot on and, sure enough, two months later, the bags filled the gaps between the joists perfectly, just as he had planned. He replaced the floorboards and ensured he left no sign they had ever been tampered with. The interior of the flat looked exactly the same as it had before the robbery. The only difference was, his cheap apartment was now worth approximately thirty million dollars.

Ricardo Gonzales had given great thought to where he would hide his share of the raid. His tiny third-floor studio flat in Pompeya was less than five hundred square feet in dimension and had no hidden spaces. But he had another location in mind that he knew would be absolutely perfect. His father had suffered two major strokes in the last five years and was housebound. He still lived in their family home, a small three-bedroom detached house on the outskirts of the city.