The film “Museo” is based on a real robbery in Mexico: this was the story that triumphs on Netflix

Netflix renews its catalog month by month and recently decided to add the movie “Museum” for its subscribers, which, oddly enough, is based on real events.

The true story of ‘Museum’: The heist that inspired the hit Netflix movie

This 2018 Mexican film, directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios, centers on Juan Núñez (Gael García Bernal) and Benjamín Wilson (Leonardo Ortizgris), a pair of friends who in 1985 plan an amateur robbery at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City on a holiday the venue was going to remain closed for a while.

Amazingly, they manage to get in and steal some iconic and priceless pieces from the museum to make the “business” of their lives, but along the way they encounter various obstacles that make the sale seem impossible.

Thanks to the plot and the mix of drama and comedy, the film is recovering and remains among the top 10 on Netflix. Something that many may not know is that the robbery described in the story was an actual event that took place at the aforementioned facility.

According to various police reports and media in Mexico, the perpetrators of the crime were two students from the Autonomous University of Mexico, who on December 25, 1985, sneaked into the National Museum of Anthropology to carry out the robbery.

Over the course of three hours, between 1 and 4 in the morning, they managed to steal 140 pieces from the Maya, Oaxaca and Mexica rooms. The theft could be successfully carried out due to two important factors: the first is that they both visited the museum for months, observed the habits of the staff and studied what they would take. The second is that the site’s security guards, who were supposed to be doing tours every two hours, skipped their rounds to celebrate Christmas, and it wasn’t until the changing of the guard, around 8:00 a.m., that the crime was discovered.

Authorities were mobilized to try to find those responsible and the investigation took years to come to fruition. A statement from the same museum explained that INTERPOL was notified of the theft and 50 million pesos were offered to the person who provided information that would help recover the pieces.

In 1989, Perts was arrested and imprisoned, where he would be murdered years later. In addition, the pieces in his possession were returned to the museum. For his part, Ramon Sardina, the other perpetrator of the robbery, managed to escape with 7 pieces and is still a fugitive from justice.

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