#’Robin Hood’ hits Brazil, leaving cash in streets after bank heists

A gang of thieves in Brazil are being compared to Robin Hood and his Merry Men after leaving bank notes strewn behind in the wake of two brazen bank heists in Criciúma and Cametá.

Last week, 30 armed thieves in large vehicles stormed Criciúma and blocked main access roads and laid siege to the police station, while others made off with the loot from a bank, Yahoo News reported. Two people were hurt, one a police officer.

However, the men were careful to not injure civilians.

“I saw the men outside, they were shouting: ‘get away from the windows, we don’t want to kill anyone,’” a resident told the news site.

Afterward, the streets were filled with banknotes and locals were rushing out to grab as much as they could carry, Yahoo reports.

An almost identical heist took place a day later across the country in the town of Cametá — where a hostage was killed.

It is thought that the robberies, which are very similar to a wave of heists that have hit the country recently, were orchestrated by the First Command of the Capital (PCC), South America’s biggest drug cartel.

“Think of the cost of carrying out a crime like this and repeating it 24 hours later on the other side of Brazil”, federal judge Ivana David told Yahoo. “You need money, cars, safe houses, weapons, explosives — all this is extremely expensive. They walked away with a truck full of cash”.