Victims of one of Germany's largest bank heists have spoken of their devastation after thieves drilled into a vault and emptied thousands of safety deposit boxes. The raid on a Sparkasse savings bank in Gelsenkirchen, western Germany, over the Christmas holidays saw criminals make off with the contents of almost 3,250 boxes, with estimates placing the total value of the haul at up to €300m (£260m).
Faqir Malyar, a 67-year-old carpet trader, said he heard the news on the radio and feared for his savings and family heirloom jewellery. After a 45-minute wait on the bank's hotline, he was told his box, number 1,413, had been emptied. "I felt as numb as if I'd had an injection," he said.
Police believe the thieves carried out the theft over a four-hour period on 27 December, gaining access to the bank through a manipulated emergency exit from an adjoining car park before boring through the vault wall with a 300kg drill. They were not alerted until 48 hours later, when a fire alarm was activated. CCTV footage shows five to seven masked suspects leaving in a black Audi and a white Mercedes van, both bearing stolen number plates.
Chief investigator André Dobersch called the crime "unprecedented", and criticised social media attempts to make light of it. "We're not talking about safe-crackers in a comic," he said, "but about criminals who've caused sleepless nights and destroyed livelihoods."
Insurance lawyer Jürgen Hennemann, who has represented victims of more than two dozen German bank robberies, said banks had been warned for over a decade that they were in the crosshairs of organised crime. He pointed to a similar heist in Norderstedt in 2021, where thieves rented an apartment above a Sparkasse and drilled through the ceiling to reach 650 boxes. Klaus Nachtigall, a former head of Berlin's criminal police, said the acts were preventable, adding: "If security systems are working, the alarm should sound at the first sign of a piece of debris falling out of the wall."
Sparkasse Gelsenkirchen defended its security, saying its technology "meets recognised state-of-the-art standards". About 230 officers have been assigned to the investigation, codenamed "Operation Drill". The suspects remain at large.
