Another recession indicator: resurgence of high-profile heists
this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
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They just don't do bank robberies like they used to...
If we don't switch from a Trickle Down to a Trickle UP Economy, we will spontaneously flip to a Robin Hood Economy (Take from the rich, give to the poor), and that usually comes accompanied by guillotines and what not.
€30mil in cash is some haul.
Like the pile of cash scene from breaking bad
It wasn't just cash but jewelry and other valuables as well.
Any haul is 10 times lighter if you bring it home and get it for free :)
The “vault” had a brick wall and wooden shelves?
From the photo, there seems to have been a substantial-thickness concrete wall and then a brick wall. Obviously, they were still not enough, but it wasn't just a brick wall.
And about the wooden shelves: So what? They are not security relevant or customer facing, they just need to work as shelves.
More formal vaults have boxes which are locked in place so that even removing the locked box requires a key.
That's a lock box vault, not a standard vault. Those have the people that own the boxes entering them often, so of course everything inside is behind another lock and key. Normal vaults don't usually ha e strangers entering them.
During the heist at Sparkasse savings bank in the city of Gelsenkirchen, thieves broke open more than 3,000 safe deposit boxes containing money, gold and jewellery.
The article says there were safe deposit boxes so the shelves in the picture were probably used to hold other non-valuable stuff like paperwork.
Nope. You do not have open shelves in a safe deposit boxes room. ~~This is where they started drilling. The room with the safe deposit boxes is on the other side of the hole.~~ The real safe deposit room seems to be not visible. This here is just the main entrance into the bank. I believe they had a large, reinforced room, separated by thin dry walls, so that they have one publicly accessible area and one where they would store documents internally.
The photo caption says they started from a parking garage. The near side doesn't look like a parking garage, it looks ransacked. And everything on the floor is under a mosaic censor. The near side in the photo is the vault.
Thanks. Edited my comment!
The article says they used a parking garage. I think the reason so much is blurred in the picture is that there are documents. This is the bank side
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I'm surprised that someone still practises the ancient art of physical brick-and-mortar bank heist. I guess the bank was also surprised.
When the prolific and unrepentant bank robber Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he replied "That's where the money is."
Can't argue with that logic
Nice to see some good old fashioned bank heists stil happening, none of this fancy pants social engineering to get passwords and accounts
Merry christmas to them!
is this meant to be ironic considering they removed a wall to get paid?
No, it's probably because of the BBC paywall.
Hell yeah.
Good fuck the banks
Eh, the bank probably won't be inconvenienced much. I imagine they have insurance, so the insurance company will be fucked, so good cause fuck insurance companies.
Although for something this big the government might be the insurance for the bank, so taxpayers might foot the bill.
So fuck us I guess, we lose again.
I have no doubt they will get caught. With the number of cameras canvassing cities and infrastructure, it is only a matter of time before they can be backtracked to some point of origin, and then be found using standard police investigation techniques. This type of job will have been done by individuals from a small pool of criminals who specialize in them, and they're not plentiful and almost always previously known by police.
I've been thinking about it myself a lot for a book, and I just don't see how they could get away in this day and age doing such a high profile robbery. Their best bet is to immediately move the loot and have third and fourth parties secure funds in overseas accounts so that they can access them after they served out their (relatively short) sentences, then live out their lives in wealth and opulence- except they rarely do that, because you don't become a bank robber for the money.
No matter how much money you potentially make, it's never going to be enough.
The article doesn't mention how much time passed since the crime occured and the discovery of the robbed vault. Depending on how much time passed, they could have easily fled the country, maybe even the EU.
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With a fucking looney tunes drill.
Wasn't this one of the Die Hard movies?
Those safe deposit boxes did not live up to their description.
They're safe, just not secure.
The PAYDAY games would have you think they were made of titanium.
Wow, look at the show off Germans, with their fancy high street banks.
I think the most valuable thing I could steal in my town is the contents of the vape shop.
Where do you get a drill that big?
More important question is that how do you use it quietly enough to not gain attention.
Good
Well bad because it was also safe deposit boxes, which wasn’t cash, and probably a person’s valuables emptied into a bag. This isn’t the Louvre heist where there were no actual victims.
Ok that part sucks
The Louvre is a national government-owned museum, so the victims in that case are the people of France (plus any visiting tourists).
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