Thieves used the quiet Christmas period to drill their way into the vault of a German retail bank and make off with about $105 million worth in money and valuables from customers’ deposit boxes, police said on Tuesday.
The perpetrators drilled through a thick concrete wall at a branch of Sparkasse bank in the western city of Gelsenkirchen and then broke into several thousand safe deposit boxes and stole a sum estimated in the double-digit millions of euros, the police said in a statement.
Most shops and banks close in Germany over the Christmas period starting from the evening of December 24, and police only discovered the hole after a fire alarm went off in the early hours of Monday, December 29.
Dozens of angry customers gathered in front of the bank on Tuesday loudly chanting “Let us in!”, Reuters reported.
“I couldn’t sleep last night. We’re getting no information,” one man told the Welt broadcaster as he waited outside the branch, adding that he had been using the safe for 25 years and that it contained his savings for old age.
Another man said he used his deposit box to store cash and jewellery for his family. A spokesperson for the Sparkasse bank in Gelsenkirchen did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Police said witnesses have reported that they saw several men on Saturday night carrying large bags in the stairwell of an adjacent parking garage.
There were also reports of a black Audi RS 6 leaving the garage early on Monday morning with masked men inside. The vehicle’s licence plate was that of a car stolen in Hanover, more than 200 kilometres to the northeast of Gelsenkirchen, police said.
Separately, AP reported that some 2,700 bank customers were affected by the theft in Gelsenkirchen, quoting police and the Sparkasse bank.
Thomas Nowaczyk, a police spokesperson, said investigators believe the theft was worth between 10 and 90 million euros ($11.7 to 105.7 million). German news agency dpa reported that the theft could be one of Germany’s largest heists.
The bank remained closed Tuesday, when some 200 people showed up demanding to get inside, dpa reported.
A fire alarm summoned police officers and firefighters to the bank branch shortly before 4 a.m. Monday. They found a hole in the wall and the vault ransacked. Police believe a large drill was used to break through the vault’s basement wall.
Witnesses told investigators they saw several men carrying large bags in a nearby parking garage over the weekend. Video footage from the garage shows masked people inside a stolen vehicle early Monday, police said.
Gelsenkirchen is about 192 kilometers (119 miles) northwest of Frankfurt.
Emmanuel Addeh
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