Bank Rio robbery
Bank robbery in Argentina

The Bank Rio robbery took place on 13 January 2006 in the town of Acassuso, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. It involved Fernando Araujo, the leader and executor of the heist; Mario Vitette Sellanes, called by the media "the man in the gray suit"; Sebastián ("the Martian") and Alberto "Beto" de la Torre; together with the support of associates that did not enter the bank.
The robbery took place in the Banco Río branch, which was held up by a gang of six robbers armed with replica weapons. They took 23 hostages and emptied 147 safes of the bank deposits totaling nearly US $20 million.
“Bank Rio robbery” enters the record as bank robbery in Argentina. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Bank, robbery and Argentina can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Bank Rio robbery” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Bank, robbery and Argentina provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q113505172. Authority coordinates are -34.476, -58.499. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2006.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Bank Rio robbery”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Bank Rio robbery primary sources, Bank Rio robbery archive and Bank research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Bank Rio robbery”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Bank Rio robbery” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.