Thieves drilled through a parking garage wall into a bank vault in western Germany over the Christmas holiday, smashing open more than 3,000 safe-deposit boxes and fleeing with an estimated 30 million euros in cash, gold and jewelry, authorities and the bank said.
The heist at a Sparkasse branch in Gelsenkirchen, in North Rhine-Westphalia state, unfolded while most businesses were shut for the Christmas break. Investigators suspect the burglars may have used the extended closure to spend days inside the underground vault area, methodically breaking open deposit boxes before slipping away.
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The break-in came to light when a fire alarm was triggered in the early hours after the holiday weekend. Responding emergency crews discovered a hole from an adjacent parking garage leading directly into the vault room, police said.
Witnesses reported seeing several men carrying large bags in the garage stairwell during the night from Saturday to Sunday. Security footage captured a black Audi RS 6 leaving the garage early the next morning with masked individuals inside. Police said the car bore license plates that had been stolen earlier in Hanover.
A police spokesman described the break-in as “very professionally executed,” likening the operation to the heist film “Ocean’s Eleven.” He added that significant insider knowledge or meticulous preparation appeared to be involved to plan and carry out the breach.
While the perpetrators remain at large, the aftermath quickly spilled into public view. Hundreds of anxious customers gathered outside the branch seeking information about their safe-deposit boxes. The branch did not open due to security concerns following threats against employees, police said. Officers remained on site to manage the crowd, which authorities later said had calmed.
Police estimated the losses at about 30 million euros, noting that the thousands of breached boxes carried an average insurance value of more than 10,000 euros. Some victims told officers their losses far exceeded insured amounts, raising the prospect of complex claims and potential gaps that insurance may not fully cover.
Sparkasse officials said they had set up a hotline and would contact affected customers in writing as quickly as possible. “We are shocked,” bank press spokesman Frank Krallmann said. “We are standing by our customers and hope that the perpetrators will be caught.” The bank said it was working with its insurer to determine how to process claims.
The Gelsenkirchen heist adds to a string of audacious robberies in Germany in recent years that have tested bank security and exploited holiday closures. In this case, investigators said the decision to attack the vault from a neighboring structure, combined with the timing over a long weekend, suggested extensive planning and reconnaissance.
Authorities did not disclose whether any alarms were disabled or whether the burglars used power tools beyond the large drill believed to have breached the vault. For now, detectives are piecing together the timeline from witness accounts and security footage while appealing for any additional information that could identify the crew behind one of the country’s most brazen bank break-ins in recent memory.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
