PROVIDENCE — City detectives are investigating an old-school “sophisticated” heist overnight of the Santander Bank in the middle of Federal Hill.
Commander Kevin Lanni said that bank security called the police at 2:02 a.m. Thursday when the alarm triggered from a breaking and entering in progress.
Officers across the city responded, with members of the department’s tactical team taking the lead out of concern that whoever might be inside would be armed, Lanni said.
But the thief, or thieves, were gone when the police entered the bank. The vault had been opened. And, a “substantial” amount of money was stolen, Lanni said.
Investigators were at the bank through the morning gathering evidence. Lanni said that they are looking into multiple suspects, but did not release a description of them or possible get-away vehicles.
What they have learned so far showed that the heist was “a sophisticated plan,” Lanni said.
These kinds of bank heists are rare. Typically, banks are robbed during the daytime, often by suspects who pass threatening notes demanding money and occasionally flash knives, fake guns, or real weapons.
Yet, Providence is also home of one of the biggest heists of all time, of a secret bank used by La Cosa Nostra.
In August 1975, eight thieves forced their way inside a drab building advertised as the Hudson Fur Storage facility, and raided 148 safety deposit boxes used by Rhode Island gangsters to store their cash, jewelry, gold and silver. This was the Bonded Vault, and it held so many valuables that the thieves couldn’t carry all the loot.
The value was estimated at about $30 million, or approximately $120 million today. Not that anyone can tell for sure, because nothing was ever recovered by law enforcement.
According to the 2016 book about the incredible robbery, “The Last Good Heist: The Inside Story of the Biggest Single Payday in the Criminal History of the Northeast,” WPRI-TV investigative reporter Tim White and former Providence Journal reporters Randall Richard and Wayne Worcester wrote that the scheme was approved by New England mob boss Raymond L.S. Patriarca.
Law enforcement later confirmed that Patriarca orchestrated — and benefited from the robbery — but he was never prosecuted.
The legendary heist was made into a movie, “Vault,” in 2019, filmed largely in Rhode Island, and featuring actor Chazz Palminteri as Patriarca, Don Johnson as mobster Gerard Ouimette, who set up the heist, and Theo Rossi, as the main thief Robert “Deuce” Dussault.
Amanda Milkovits can be reached at amanda.milkovits@globe.com. Follow her @AmandaMilkovits.