Overview
- Police and prosecutors executed a search of the Gelsenkirchen-Buer branch to secure data as a special commission reviews access logs and nearby mobile phone records.
- Investigators are examining why a Dec. 27 fire-alarm response failed to detect the intrusion before a second alarm early Dec. 29 revealed the ransacked vault, as well as questions about the intrusion alarm.
- Signals of insider assistance are under review after investigators found no pry marks on a secured internal door and indications of controlled access to areas beside the vault.
- The crew is believed to have entered via an adjacent parkhouse/archival area and used a specialist core drill to breach a reinforced wall, opening nearly all of about 3,250 safe-deposit boxes.
- Loss estimates remain unsettled—police cite a mid–two-digit million euro figure, while some media and lawyers claim 100 million or more—with many victims facing only about €10,300 in standard coverage and police warning of follow-on phone scams.