Thieves Construct 150-Ft.-Long Tunnel to Rob German Bank

Earlier this Monday, a German bank found their valuables suddenly missing – and along with it, an elaborate, complex tunnel that came along with it.

  • Share
  • Read Later
Sean Gallup / Getty Images

The robbers dug a tunnel from the underground parking garage to access the vault of Volksbank in Berlin and made off with the contents sometime on Jan. 14, 2013

Last Monday, a German bank found its valuables suddenly missing — and along with it, found an elaborate, complex tunnel.

A branch of the Berliner Volksbank in the German capital discovered a 150-ft. tunnel from a nearby parking garage that had been constructed all the way to underneath the bank’s vault. Thieves had used the tunnel in a successful heist sometime early Monday. The theft was reported later that morning when a security guard noticed smoke coming from the deposit room.

(MORE: Thinking About Robbing a Bank? Read This First)

Though police are still trying to figure out what and how much was stolen, the Daily Mail suggests that almost €10 million, or $13.3 million, of valuables were stolen.

Thomas Neuendorf, a spokesman for the Berlin police told the BBC:

The tunnel was constructed very professionally. It was stabilized with beams and supports. Obviously, the suspects spent months digging to build this roughly 45-meter long tunnel from the parking garage to the bank.

The culprits had blasted through a concrete wall in the parking garage and continued to dig through sand and dirt for months. The construction of the actual tunnel suggests that the robbers themselves, or their accomplices, had specialized skill sets.

(MORE: Woman Brags About Bank Robbery on YouTube, Gets Arrested)

German police, meanwhile, have released a sketch of a man who was seen hanging around the parking garage for quite some time.