BERLIN, Dec 30 — Thieves used the quiet Christmas period to drill their way into the vault of a German retail bank and make off with at least €10 million (RM47.59 million) worth of money and valuables from customers' deposit boxes.
The perpetrators drilled through a thick concrete wall at a branch of the Sparkasse bank in the western city of Gelsenkirchen, then broke into several thousand safe deposit boxes and stole a sum estimated in the double-digit millions of euros, the police said in a statement on Tuesday.
Most shops and banks in Germany close over the Christmas period, starting the evening of December 24, and police only discovered the hole after a fire alarm went off in the early hours of Monday, December 29.
Dozens of angry customers gathered in front of the bank on Tuesday, loudly chanting "Let us in!"
"I could not sleep last night. We are getting no information," one man told the Welt broadcaster as he waited outside the branch, adding that he had been using the safe for 25 years and that it contained his savings for old age.
Another man said he used his deposit box to store cash and jewellery for his family.
A spokesman for the Sparkasse bank in Gelsenkirchen did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The police said witnesses reported seeing several men on Saturday night carrying large bags in the stairwell of an adjacent parking garage.
There were also reports of a black Audi RS 6 leaving the garage early on Monday morning with masked men inside. The vehicle's licence plate was that of a car stolen in Hanover, more than 200 kilometres to the northeast of Gelsenkirchen.
