lots of tunneling in brazil...

SAO PAULO, Brazil - Thieves spent three months tunneling under a busy city boulevard in northeastern Brazil to break into a Central Bank vault and pull off the biggest robbery ever in South America's largest country.

The crime that netted $67.8 million was remarkably similar to a tunnel heist last year in which more than $1 million was stolen from a Sao Paulo company that transports money for banks. The suspected mastermind of that caper reportedly had escaped from prison three years earlier — by digging a tunnel.

The vault in the city of Fortaleza, about 1,550 miles northeast of the capital, was plundered over the weekend "by a group of highly sophisticated thieves," said Sabrina Albuquerque, a federal police spokeswoman.

Not a single shot was fired, she said, adding that while no one has been arrested, at least eight suspects have been identified. She did not know if more thieves were involved.