{"id":30216,"date":"2026-01-01T08:37:01","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T13:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=30216"},"modified":"2026-01-01T08:37:01","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T13:37:01","slug":"thieves-use-drill-to-steal-e30m-in-german-bank-heist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2026\/01\/01\/thieves-use-drill-to-steal-e30m-in-german-bank-heist\/","title":{"rendered":"Thieves use drill to steal \u20ac30m in German bank heist"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"ssrcss-suhx0k-RichTextComponentWrapper ep2nwvo0\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"ssrcss-1o5p6v2-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi1\">\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Thieves used a large drill to break into a safe at a high street bank branch in western Germany and steal an estimated \u20ac30m (\u00a326m; $35m) in cash and valuables, police have said.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A police spokesman likened the break-in to the Hollywood heist film Ocean&#8217;s Eleven, telling AFP news agency it was &#8220;very professionally executed&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">During the heist at Sparkasse savings bank in the city of Gelsenkirchen, thieves broke open more than 3,000 safe deposit boxes containing money, gold and jewellery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Gelsenkirchen Police said they became aware of the crime after a fire alarm was set off in the early hours of Monday morning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Currently, no arrests have been made and the perpetrators remain at large.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ssrcss-suhx0k-RichTextComponentWrapper ep2nwvo0\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"ssrcss-1o5p6v2-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi1\">\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Police said the thieves had used the &#8220;quiet Christmas days&#8221; to rob the building on Nienhofstrasse in the Buer district.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Initial investigations suggest they gained access to the bank, and escaped, via an adjacent parking garage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Witnesses have reported seeing several men carrying large bags in the staircase of the garage overnight on Saturday into Sunday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Police said video footage shows a black Audi RS 6 leaving the garage, on De-La-Chevallerie-Strasse, early on Monday morning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The hole into the underground vault room was discovered when a fire alarm went off in the early hours of Monday, and police and the fire brigade searched the building.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Affected bank customers have been asked to contact Sparkasse bank, which has set up a hotline. Police secured the entrance of the branch on Tuesday after a large number of customers gathered outside demanding information.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I couldn&#8217;t sleep last night. We&#8217;re getting no information,&#8221; one man told the Welt broadcaster, according to Reuters, as he waited outside the branch, adding that it contained his savings for old age.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A message on the bank&#8217;s website said the branch would remain closed on Tuesday following the break-in.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sparkasse said 95% of customers&#8217; safe deposit boxes had been forced open by the thieves, so the likelihood they were affected is &#8220;very high&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It added that the contents of each compartment are insured up to \u20ac10,300 and told customers to check if they had additional coverage through their home insurance.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c4grzz60kp3o\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">Thieves used a large drill to break into a safe at a high street bank branch in western Germany and steal an estimated \u20ac30m (\u00a326m; $35m) in cash and valuables, police have said. A police <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2026\/01\/01\/thieves-use-drill-to-steal-e30m-in-german-bank-heist\/\" title=\"Thieves use drill to steal \u20ac30m in German bank heist\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109,2,6],"tags":[5927,11958,11960,320,11959],"class_list":{"0":"post-30216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headline","8":"category-news","9":"category-world","10":"tag-bank-robbery","11":"tag-gelsenkirchen","12":"tag-gelsenkirchen-police","13":"tag-germany","14":"tag-sparkasse","15":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30218,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30216\/revisions\/30218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}