{"id":260970,"date":"2026-01-01T03:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T03:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/260970\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T03:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T03:24:10","slug":"thieves-drill-into-german-bank-vault-and-make-off-with-millions-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/260970\/","title":{"rendered":"Thieves drill into German bank vault and make off with millions \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Thieves used the quiet Christmas period to \u200bdrill their way into the vault of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/germany\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/germany\">German <\/a>retail bank and make off with \u200dat least \u20ac10 million worth of money and valuables from customers\u2019 deposit boxes, police said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">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 \u200cdeposit boxes and stole a sum estimated  at  double-digit millions of euros, the police said \u2060in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Most shops and banks close in Germany over \u200cthe \u200bChristmas period, \u200dstarting from the evening of December 24th, and police only discovered the hole after a fire alarm went off in the early hours of Monday, December 29th.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Dozens of \u2060angry customers gathered in front of the bank on Tuesday loudly chanting \u201cLet \u2060us in!\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI couldn\u2019t sleep last night. \u2060We\u2019re getting no information,\u201d one man told the Welt broadcaster as he waited outside the branch, adding that he \u200dhad been using the safe for 25 years and that it contained his savings for old age.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Another man said he used his deposit box to store cash and jewellery for his family.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A spokesperson for the Sparkasse bank in Gelsenkirchen did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"An image released by police in Gelsenkirchen shows a hole drilled by thieves into the vault of a German savings bank.\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/4VY5DBRA4VB3PBJIAM7IJ2HFUU.jpg\"   width=\"800\" height=\"499\"\/>An image released by police in Gelsenkirchen shows a hole drilled by thieves into the vault of a German savings bank. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Police said witnesses have reported \u200cthat they saw \u200cseveral men on Saturday night carrying large bags in the stairwell of an adjacent parking garage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">There were also reports of a \u200cblack Audi RS 6 leaving the garage early on Monday morning with masked men \u2060inside. The vehicle\u2019s licence plate was that of a car stolen in Hanover, more than 200km to the northeast of Gelsenkirchen, police said. &#8211; Reuters <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thieves used the quiet Christmas period to \u200bdrill their way into the vault of a German retail bank&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6621,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-260970","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-germany","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-topstories","21":"tag-world","22":"tag-world-news","23":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115817707101297513","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}