The movie is a fictionalized account of what was called "The Heist of the Century", with the obvious changes. In reality, it was performed by two veterinary school students, actual names Carlos Perches and Ramon Sardina. The movie portrays the events of the actual robbery quite accurately, including museum guards being careless due to a Christmas celebration, the amount and type stolen pieces, the method of escape, as well as the first suspicion of the heist being done by professionals working for international art dealers and the 50 million pesos reward offered by the museum. Later, the film comprises time periods and combines several characters into a single one. In reality, the thieves managed to avoid capture for four years: Perches and Sardina went to Acapulco, when they tried to sell the pieces to drug lord Jose Serrano and his mistress, a popular cabaret dancer nicknamed "Princesa Yamal". Serrano introduced them to Salvador Gutierrez a.k.a. "El Cabo", another drug lord, who promised to sell the artifacts and estimated a price tag of one billion dollars. Two of the pieces were given to Serrano in exchange for cocaine by Perches, while Sardina apparently gave him seven as evidence they were the actual robbers. The police, in the meanwhile, had lost track of the pieces and closed the file, in part by the fact of the Museum not having a complete inventory of the stolen artifacts until much later, with the first reports showing wrong or incomplete records. Finally, in January 1989, the Mexican Federal Police arrested "El Cabo", who gave them all the leads to find the robbers. Perches was arrested in April at his house, along with his brother and the rest of the stolen artifacts. Five more people were arrested, including Serrano's mistress, an Argentinean showgirl called Cristina Gonzalez -both later released- and an American named Nathan Clevenger, the apparent buyer. In total, 111 of 124 pieces were recovered and returned to the museum. However, the whereabouts of Ramon Sardina and the nine pieces he and Perches gave away is still unknown.
