In an operation that resembled the 1978 Lufthansa heist made famous in Martin Scorsese's film Goodfellas, one of Samsung's key manufacturing plants has suffered a massive raid by criminals on Monday that has resulted in reported losses of about R$80 million ($36m).

About 20 men armed with submachine guns invaded the factory in Campinas, in the countryside of São Paulo state. More than 200 staff went about their normal business as the villains loaded seven trucks with numerous items including notebooks, tablets and smartphones.

According to the police, the criminals accessed the facility disguised as staff during the night shift, just after midnight. Some employees were held hostage by the criminals while the majority continued to work, but had the batteries of their mobile phones taken to prevent them from calling the police.

The gang was not violent at any point and remained onsite for three hours, the Samsung employees told the police.

The robbery is now being investigated and the police added that the case could well be an inside job since the gang could not only access the factory but also had some privileged information about where certain valuable items were located.

"We are very concerned about this incident. Fortunately, nobody was hurt. We are fully cooperating with the ongoing police investigation, and we will do our best to avoid it happening again," Samsung said in a statement.