Thieves drill into high street bank vault in €30million German heist
The thieves reportedly broke into around 3,000 safe deposit boxes containing tens of millions of euros, as well as gold and jewellery.
Thieves have ran away with an estimated £30million (£26million) in cash after using a large drill to break into a vault during a high street bank heist in Germany.
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Police said the robbers used the "quiet Christmas days" to break into the building on Nienhofstrasse in the Buer district, western Germany.
The thieves reportedly broke into around 3,000 safe deposit boxes containing tens of millions of euros, as well as gold and jewellery.
An image of the ransacked bank vault shows a circular hole drilled through a thick wall with items strewn across the floor.
Witnesses reported spotting several men with large bags in the stairwell of the garage overnight on Saturday.
Footage from the scene reportedly shows a black Audi RS 6 leaving a garage they escaped from, on De-La-Chevallerie-Strasse.
The masked suspects were also seen inside the vehicle, which was police say 150 miles away in in Hanover.
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Gelsenkirchen Police said they were alerted to the heist after a fire alarm was set off in the early hours of Monday morning.
The thieves are still at large, with no arrests made so far.
Those potentially affected by the robbery gathered outside the Sparkasse bank on Tuesday morning.
However, the stayed locked and police ordered them to return home, according to local media.
The bank branch said in a statement on its website: "Over the Christmas holidays, the customer safe deposit box area of the Buer branch was broken into.
"More than 95% of the customer safe deposit boxes were forced open by as-yet-unknown perpetrators”
It means the likelihood customers are affected is "very high", the bank added.
The statement continued: "Due to the extensive damage, customers cannot access this area until further notice."
It added that the contents of each deposit box are insured up to €10,300.
The bank has told customers to check if they had additional coverage via their home insurance.