Arturo Román

**Arturo Román** is an antagonist in the Netflix series *Money Heist*, portrayed by actor Enrique Arce. He was the general director of the Royal Mint of Spain before the heist took place.

## Biography

### Part 1

Arturo was married, but having an affair with his secretary, Mónica Gaztambide, and she got pregnant with his son. Arturo constantly got in trouble with the robbers.

Arturo is one of the hostages, along with Pablo Ruiz, who are sent to dig a tunnel aimed towards the sewer system below the Royal Mint of Spain. There he and Pablo discover that the robbers have plastic explosives. A little later, Arturo reveals to Monica that he has a phone in his office, sending her to go and retrieve it. This leads to Monica being presumably shot by Denver under Berlin's orders. Arturo is unaware whether Monica is safe or not.

After that, Moscow suffers a panic attack. Arturo is one of the hostages sent on the roof with Moscow and Denver to get some air. Arturo ends up overhearing that Denver had shot Monica sending him into a fury. In said fury, he is waving around a fake gun given to him by the robbers, so Denver and Moscow get on their knees as other hostages panic. In the confusion, the police believe that Arturo is a robber about to execute hostages. Raquel Murillo, the lead inspector, orders the sniper to shoot, only aware of Arturos identity immediately afterwards.

Once Arturo is shot in the shoulder, he is in desperate need of medical help. This has The Professor request a medical team of two surgeons and a nurse from the police. Before the surgery, Arturo is given a phone call with his wife, Laura, promising to go on a vacation to Australia with her. He then messes up, when he calls his wife Monica instead of her name. This gets Berlin's respect. Arturo is operated on by the two surgeons with the nurse, an undercover cop, only helping. Arturo is only given local anesthesia so he can talk to Berlin.

When Inspector Raquel Murillo enters the Mint to verify the safety of all the hostages, she speaks with Arturo. During their conversation, she apologizes to Arturo for ordering the shot that hit his shoulder. After meeting with Raquel, Arturo speaks to Mercedes Colmenar. Mercedes shows and gives Arturo a pair of scissors she stole while checking on her student with Berlin. Later during the check-up, Arturo convinces Alison Parker to hide, but the plan fails.

As Arturo is recovering, he is shown that Monica is actually still alive, but their relationship is not as it was before. Then, in the bathroom he runs into Jacinto, the former head security. Talking between stalls, Arturo tells Jacinto he can get him some tools so they and the other capture security and police can escape. After talking with Pablo Ruiz, Arturo convinces Pablo to get the tools and plant them in the stall for Jacinto. Later, during the time of the escape, he tells Pablo to go to the storage room to meet with Jacinto, who had fatally wounded Oslo, while he gets Monica.

While getting Monica, he finds out that she and Denver are in a relationship. This enrages Arturo leading them to fight. Eventually, when Denver has his back turned, Arturo stabs Denver with dull scissors he got from Mercedes Colmenar. The scissors did nothing to Denver, and Arturo takes completely turns from being angry and confident to scared and sorrowful. To prevent Denver from hurting him, Arturo snitches on the escape plan.

After the Robbers of the Royal Mint of Spain, had secured the area of the escape, Helsinki had brought Arturo to the break room being used as personal space for the robbers. There, Helsinki shows Arturo the pipe used to paralyze Oslo. Arturo makes a short speech on how he just doesn't care any more and how that they are the good guys, not the robbers. Helsinki decides against beating Arturo.

When Berlin and Nairobi give the remaining hostages an ultimatum, of money or freedom. Arturo decides to stay when Mercedes and Ariadna silently inform a couple hostages that the promise of freedom is a lie.

### Part 2

Arturo is now one of the few hostages left in the Royal Mint of Spain who are still working. Arturo is still dedicated to escaping the mint no matter the cost. While bagging money with Mercedes Colmenar, Alison Parker, a few other hostages, and a recently broken up with Mónica Gaztambide. There he devises another plan to escape with information from Alison.

Alison tells Arturo that the security door to the mint takes 4 seconds to open. Arturo realizes they can escape if they replace a real gun with one of the fakes brought by the robbers. Arturo sneaks out of the hostages' work room, past Nairobi, and into the room they store the guns. Arturo is discovered by Francisco Torres, and threatens him to not report what he just saw. The threat works and Arturo sneaks back to the other hostages to give the fake gun to Monica, so she can replace it with Denver's.

Monica successfully retrieves the gun, and gives it to Arturo. Later, when Arturo, Alison, Mercedes, Monica and a group of hostages are under the watch of Denver. When Denver is alone, the hostages confront him. Denver pulls out his gun and Arturo pulls out his. Shortly after, Denver realizes his is fake and Arturo holds him at gun point. Arturo sends Monica to open the security doors, but Rio prevents it with a computer program. As the other robbers arrive, Arturo holds Denver hostage as the robbers plead with Arturo to stop. Arturo is then knocked down by Monica and comes to the conclusion that Monica has betrayed the hostages and joined the robbers.

In response to everything Arturo has done, Helsinki brings him to the storage room. In the room, Helsinki covers Arturo with explosives. Helsinki tells Arturo that if he does anything, even sweat, his wife won't be able to identify the pieces. This terrifies Arturo as he is then places in a chair of the museum section of the mint with the other hostages. There, he tries to convince everyone and himself that the bombs are fake, but he is quickly stopped by Alison Parker.

Near the end of the heist, Arturo is freed from his bombs by Helsinki, and realizes that they were actually fake. He is sent back down to continue to dig the hole he had with Pablo Ruiz with 5 other hostages. Eventually, he and the hostages reach a brick wall. They report the find to Tokyo and Rio who give them a sledge hammer to continue.

When Arturo and the 5 other hostages get though the wall they encounter a group of armed police waiting for them guns drawn. The police had believed that Arturo and the other 5 hostages were the robbers trying to escape into the sewer. With this, Arturo is freed from captivity from the Royal Mint of Spain.

### Part 3

When the crew returned to Spain to rob the Bank of Spain, Arturo approached the building and ran inside when the entrance doors were about to close, becoming a hostage again. He tried to manipulate other hostages to go against the robbers, much like in the previous heist. This time, however, the attempts were marred by his predatory behavior towards women; he drugged and raped Amanda, and later tried to do the same to Manila.

## Personality

Arturo is a coward who tries to escape from severe consequences by letting others do the deeds, putting the other hostages into danger.

He's also a huge attention seeker, as seen in Part 4 where he explicitly states that he wants to be the hero who saves all of them.

In addition he's a misogynistic narcissist and feels entitled to women's bodies, making use of them to satisfy his own needs by giving them sleep-inducing anxiety pills.

## Relationships

### Mónica Gaztambide

Mónica was having an affair with Arturo and became pregnant with his child. During the heist, Denver made her realise how horrible Arturo really was and the pair quickly fell in love and as she escaped with Denver, Arturo has never met his child who was later named Cincinnati.

During the Bank of Spain Heist, Arturo runs in the Bank of Spain when he finds out Mónica was one of the robbers. Inside, he tries to pressure Mónica to let him see his son, she agrees reluctantly. Although, when he gets touchy with Mónica, she pulls a gun on him.

### Laura

At the time of the Bank of Spain Heist, Arturo and Laura had been married for 14 years and had 3 children together. However, Arturo had been cheating on Laura with Mónica. The two later divorced.

### Helsinki

Helsinki likes to make Arturo nervous, often belittling him by calling him "Arturito". In the last hours of the robbery, he covered him with fake explosives to scare him.

### Pablo Ruiz

During the heist, Arturo and Pablo develop a friendship.

Both Arturo and Pablo are chosen by Moscow to dig a tunnel. Arturo suggests that Pablo check what is hidden under a tarpaulin a few metres away. Under the tarpaulin are weapons, gasoline cans and explosives in the crate.

Later, Pablo follows Arturo's plan to hide tools in the toilet for another hostage, Jacinto, to retrieve. Using these tools, the hostages manage to knock out Oslo and then attempt to escape the Royal Mint of Spain.

## Gallery

Mónica confronts ArturoArturo removes his blindfold
## References

1. ↑ (Confirmed by a surgeon)
2. ↑ Ending credits
3. ↑ Ending credits
4. ↑ *Episode 5 (Part 1)*
5. ↑ *Episode 7 (Part 2)*
6. ↑ *Episode 3 (Part 1)*