Thieves Drilled Into a Bank Vault and Emptied 3,000 Safe Deposit Boxes

Thieves broke into a German bank vault over Christmas weekend, making off with tens of millions of dollars of valuables from over 3,000 safe deposit boxes, say police.

“I would definitely say this is quite spectacular,” said Thomas Nowaczyk, a spokesman for the local police, in translated remarks. “I have never heard of any similar case, except on TV.”

At Sparkasse Gelsenkirchen’s branch in Buer, a suburb in western Germany, the holiday heist started with thieves breaking into a door and then drilling through the concrete bank vault wall.

The boxes’ insured value was at least 31 million euros, or $36 million. The heist’s full tally could be much higher, as some customers likely stored valuables exceeding the insurance limit.

“Unfortunately, you must assume that your box has also been broken into,” Sparkasse Gelsenkirchen said on its website. “More than 95% of the customer safe deposit boxes were forced upon by the as-yet-unknown perpetrators.”

The police spokesman said it was a professional job.

“The hole that can now be seen also indicates that a very large special tool was used. Accordingly, it must have taken longer and was certainly not a spontaneous action,” Nowaczyk said.

The Associated Press reported that an early Monday fire alarm drew first responders to the bank.

Dozens of angry people gathered outside the branch early this week.

“I fear my mother’s gold coin is gone. She passed away in 1988. My grandmother’s gold bracelets, which I hoped would secure my daughter’s future,” a woman told DW News, which translated her remarks to English.

Michael Levi, a professor of criminology at Cardiff University, told DW News that banks often have less security vigilance during holiday weekends.

He said the thieves likely “had some level of inside information” to access the site, so investigators would look for dissatisfied employees, ex-employees, or contractors.

“It’s the large end of the scale” of robberies, Levi said.