In March 2011, the lease for a rundown café came up for sale in the Belgrano District and Pedro was the only person who showed any interest in acquiring it. Café Torino had first opened its doors in the mid-eighties and, twenty years later, had gone out of business, a casualty of trendier fast-food outlets that had sprung up around it. It may not have had any clientele or appeal to potential buyers but, for Pedro, its positioning was perfect. It was located just two buildings away from the Banco Estero. He only had enough money to cover the lease payments for twelve months, but knew he only needed eight to build the tunnel. Two weeks after he took it over, he plastered the two front windows with old newspaper so no one could see inside. A handwritten sign on the door simply said, Café Torino is being renovated and will reopen soon.

Once Pedro secured the café, he set about recruiting two associates. Although he had no personal background in crime, he knew exactly where to go. His first cousin, Sebastian Ramos, was a serial criminal whose signature crime was house robbery. He knew Sebastian had been caught and convicted on two occasions during the last thirty years but had successfully completed well over a hundred robberies. That gave him a ninety-eight per cent success rate, which was good enough for Pedro.

Ramos recruited the third member of the team, Ricardo Gonzales. He was a plasterer and small-time criminal who was literally built like an ox. And he worked like one too. Initially, for two months, the three men met up after work every Monday, Wednesday and Friday night. The meetings took place inside the deserted café, where they devoured Pedro’s home-made chilli and planned every step of the heist. Using a fake account, Pedro bought all the equipment and materials they needed on eBay and the purchases were delivered to the rear entrance of the café. The single most expensive item he sourced was a second-hand earth drill boring kit, normally used for excavating driveways.

At precisely midnight on Monday, 23 May 2011, the drilling began and continued every weekday night and weekend for the following eight months. Once a week, in the early hours, the freshly excavated earth was placed into large cloth bags, loaded onto a lorry and driven south out of the city to the Pinar del Norte forest where it was carefully dumped. The mining work was draining and relentless, but the three men grew to love their daily routine and finally, after many gruelling months, the tunnel was complete.

Ricardo only needed about forty minutes to drill through the concrete floor and, when he had finished, he’d created a hole about four feet wide. Pedro peered up into the murky darkness that seeped through the newly created opening.