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Police arrested two Italian brothers today after they allegedly used stolen luxury cars, explosives, and masks of U.S. President Donald Trump to go on a months-long spree of bank robberies during which they blew up “dozens” of ATMs, according to Reuters.
Carabinieri investigators told local news outlet La Stampa that they’d been tracking the duo for months. Each time they struck, their M.O. was the same: they’d roll up to a bank in the middle of the night in a stolen car wearing the Trump masks, crack open the front of the ATM with a specialized tool, insert a small explosive, and wait for the cash to start flying. They reportedly managed to steal over $115,000 from dozens of banks before police finally caught up with them on Monday.
As some of are probably thinking right now, yes, this is very similar to the plot of the 1991 classic Point Break, where a young John Wick Keanu Reeves goes undercover to bust up a group of bank-robbing surfers who use masks of various U.S. presidents to conceal their identities. And also, what does this have to do with cars? Well, Italian investigators have another movie reference for you, according to a statement obtained by Reuters: the 1997 thriller The Jackal.
The brothers used several different cars during their spree, including an Audi A6 Avant and the Mercedes A45 AMG seen up top. But they were apparently loath to stop using the little hot hatch once authorities had a lead on the car, opting instead to respray it from white to black in a bid to confuse the cops—just like Bruce Willis’s titular assassin character did in The Jackal (and Edward Fox in the 1973 original The Day of the Jackal). In pictures of the recovered A45 AMG, you can see the original white paint on the underside of the hood and through several scratches on the front clip.
Unfortunately for them, it didn’t work. Police released security video of their last heist, and despite the impressive pyrotechnics and funny images of the Donald Trump masks, it ends with cops swarming the Mercedes as the the brothers try to turn around in a narrow alley.
