A Hollywood-style bank vault break-in has rattled western Germany after thieves drilled through a concrete wall and emptied thousands of safety deposit boxes in what investigators themselves likened to Ocean’s Eleven.
The burglary hit a Sparkasse Gelsenkirchen branch in the Buer district of Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia, during the Christmas holiday lull, when foot traffic and staffing are typically lower. Police say the culprits gained access from a nearby parking garage, then used a large drill to bore through the thick vault wall and reach an underground safe-deposit room.
The crime came to light in the early hours of Monday, December 29, 2025, when a fire alarm triggered shortly before 4 a.m., drawing police and firefighters to the branch. Inside, responders found a gaping hole and a ransacked vault area, suggesting the operation had been underway for some time rather than a quick smash-and-grab. Investigators believe the gang may have spent much of the weekend working inside the vault room, forcing boxes one by one.
Authorities estimate that more than 3,000 safety deposit boxes were breached, over 95% of the bank’s inventory, impacting about 2,700 customers who stored valuables ranging from documents and jewelry to gold and cash. The size of the haul remains uncertain because deposit boxes are private and their contents are not itemized by the bank, leaving officials to rely on customer reports and insurance limits.
That uncertainty has produced a striking range of loss estimates. Police have said the stolen property could be worth anywhere from €10 million to €90 million. Sparkasse stated that each box is insured for €10,300 unless customers arranged additional private coverage, implying that the insured total could be far lower than what some victims say they lost, especially if family heirlooms or substantial amounts of gold were stored inside.
Public reaction in Gelsenkirchen was immediate and emotional. In the days after the break-in, hundreds of distressed customers gathered outside the branch demanding answers, with police deployed to manage crowds and protect staff. Reports indicated some customers believed the value of what they kept in their boxes far exceeded the insured limit, intensifying anger and anxiety as people worried that decades of savings or irreplaceable sentimental items had vanished in a single night.
Investigators are now piecing together a timeline that may have started even before the Monday alarm. Police noted the fire alarm was also triggered on Saturday, but at the time authorities found no visible damage, raising the possibility that the group used the first alert to test response times or create confusion before returning to complete the raid. Witnesses have told police they saw several men carrying large bags in the stairwells of the adjacent parking garage over the weekend, a detail that could become crucial as detectives map movements and search for surveillance footage across the area.
Video evidence is also central to the hunt. Police said security footage from the garage showed masked people inside a stolen vehicle early Monday, and reporting has referenced a black Audi RS 6 linked to the escape, with its license plate stolen earlier in Hanover, more than 200 kilometers away. The cross-city plate theft, the specialized drilling equipment, and the time needed to access and force open thousands of boxes have all reinforced investigators’ belief that this was a carefully planned, professional job that likely required significant prior knowledge of the building layout and the holiday schedule.
While police have not confirmed inside involvement, the sophistication of the operation has inevitably revived an old question German investigators have faced in other high-value cases: who had access, who had plans, and who knew exactly when the coast would be clear. Those questions echo beyond banking. Germany has seen other headline-grabbing thefts where planning and insider-style knowledge were suspected, such as the 2019 Dresden Green Vault jewel heist, which led to convictions in 2023.
For now, the Sparkasse branch remains at the center of a fast-moving investigation, with detectives collecting witness statements, analyzing CCTV routes in and out of the garage, and urging affected customers to document losses for insurance and evidence purposes. With estimates stretching as high as €90 million, officials say the case could rank among Germany’s biggest robberies, both for the sheer number of victims and the scale of valuables taken in a single, movie-like strike.
