Why does Ray want the police to know when and where the bank robbery begins?

Question

Yesterday I watched Den of Thieves which to my understanding contains quite a few inconsistencies. But there is one thing that stands out: Why did Ray Merrimen want the police to know when the bank robbery takes place and where it starts?

When. At 48:47 minutes Ray tells Donnie Wilson to inform Big Nick when the bank robbery takes place. Ray says "Friday. Make sure he knows it's on.".

Start position. Between 53 and 56 minutes we see Ray comming home and noticing that his wife had sex with Big Nick. Then Big Nick goes to the car and tells the exact place where the criminals will attack - Pico Rivera Savings. Big Nick obviously learnt that from Ray's wife and this is even undermined because she says to Ray "I did what you want me to do.". Obviously, Ray wants the cops also to know where the robbery starts (sidenote: this is a really strange way to tell Big Nick the place by letting him have sex with the own wife. In this movie cops and criminals meet up all the time so there should be an easier way to let him know the place).

I see no advantage for the criminals of informing the cops about that two details and in fact this information helped the cops to be prepared (preparation of the cops starts at 58 minutes). So the cops could easily appear in time and eventually kill most of the criminals.

What's the point of sharing those information?

Answer 1

Donnie tells Nick that the robbery is taking place, on Merriman's instruction. However, he did not tell Nick where the robbery was taking place. Only that one is taking place on Friday. Nick is told the location by Merriman's girlfriend. If you recall, Merriman's crew suspected Donnie of being an informant, so Merriman wanted to control the information Nick was receiving.

Nick waits at the Pico Rivero bank, but that was all a decoy. They hoped the police would wait a few hours and be delayed by Merriman's demands, they didn't expect Nick to charge in so quickly and discover the hole in the vault leading to the sewer.

Nick's team finds Donnie on the street, where Nick beats him into telling Merriman's plan. What Nick and Merriman didn't know is that Donnie had already diverted the funds away from both of them, double-crossing Merriman and leading to the shootout that killed Merriman and his team.

The film ends with Nick walking into Donnie's former place of employment, discovering photos of Donnie with some of the patrons he had seen when he first approached Donnie. It then flashes to England where Donnie is working at another bar, directly across from the Diamond Exchange, and with those same cohorts as patrons.