{"id":42068,"date":"2026-01-01T07:01:55","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T07:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/thieves-in-germany-drilled-into-a-bank-vault-stealing-tens-of-millions-in-valuables\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T07:01:55","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T07:01:55","slug":"thieves-in-germany-drilled-into-a-bank-vault-stealing-tens-of-millions-in-valuables","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/thieves-in-germany-drilled-into-a-bank-vault-stealing-tens-of-millions-in-valuables\/","title":{"rendered":"Thieves in Germany drilled into a bank vault, stealing tens of millions in valuables"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6955faa104eda4732f2e5a21?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Police leave the branch of Sparkasse Gelsenkirchen after investigating a break-in\"\/><figcaption>Thieves broke into the vault of one branch of Germany&#039;s Sparkasse Gelsenkirchen.<\/p>\n<p>Christoph Reichwein\/picture alliance via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Thieves stole valuables worth at least $36 million from a German bank vault.<\/li>\n<li>Over 3,000 safe deposit boxes were breached at Sparkasse Gelsenkirchen in Buer.<\/li>\n<li>Police say the holiday heist was a professional job.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I would definitely say this is quite spectacular,&quot; said Thomas Nowaczyk, a spokesman for the local police, in translated remarks. &quot;I have never heard of any similar case, except on TV.&quot; <\/p>\n<p>At Sparkasse Gelsenkirchen&#039;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. <\/p>\n<p>The boxes&#039; insured value was at least 31 million euros, or $36 million. The heist&#039;s full tally could be much higher, as some customers likely stored valuables exceeding the insurance limit.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Unfortunately, you must assume that your box has also been broken into,&quot; Sparkasse Gelsenkirchen said on its website. &quot;More than 95% of the customer safe deposit boxes were forced upon by the as-yet-unknown perpetrators.&quot; <\/p>\n<p>The police spokesman said it was a professional job.  <\/p>\n<p>&quot;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,&quot; Nowaczyk said. <\/p>\n<p>The Associated Press reported that an early Monday fire alarm drew first responders to the bank.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6956069104eda4732f2e5a2a?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Thieves drilled a hole in the concrete wall of a German bank\"\/><figcaption>Thieves drilled this hole in the concrete wall of a German bank, say police.<\/p>\n<p>Police Gelsenkirchen\/Reuters<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Dozens of angry people gathered outside the branch early this week.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I fear my mother&#039;s gold coin is gone. She passed away in 1988. My grandmother&#039;s gold bracelets, which I hoped would secure my daughter&#039;s future,&quot; a woman told DW News, which translated her remarks to English. <\/p>\n<p>Michael Levi, a professor of criminology at Cardiff University, told DW News that banks often have less security vigilance during holiday weekends. <\/p>\n<p>He said the thieves likely &quot;had some level of inside information&quot; to access the site, so investigators would look for dissatisfied employees, ex-employees, or contractors. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;It&#039;s the large end of the scale&quot; of robberies, Levi said.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thieves broke into the vault of one branch of Germany&#039;s Sparkasse Gelsenkirchen. Christoph Reichwein\/picture alliance via Getty Images Thieves stole valuables worth at least $36 million from a German bank vault. Over 3,000 safe deposit boxes were breached at Sparkasse Gelsenkirchen in Buer. Police say the holiday heist was a professional job. Thieves broke into [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-42068","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}