Robbers stole items worth up to $105bn from safe-deposit boxes held at a German retail bank in Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia state, during the Christmas holiday, German police said on Tuesday.The German news agency dpa reported that it may rank among the biggest thefts in the country’s history.What happened and what was stolen?The thieves broke into a branch of Sparkasse bank in the city of Gelsenkirchen, in North Rhine-Westphalia state, from an adjacent parking garage, according to the police, at some point when businesses were closed for the Christmas holiday.The German state is home to museums and Gothic architecture. Its capital, Dusseldorf, is known for its shopping boulevard and the Rheinturm telecommunications tower.Using a large drill, the thieves bore through a thick concrete wall of the bank and gained access to an underground vault room. Then, they forced open some 3,000 safe deposit boxes, before making off with cash, gold and jewellery.A police spokesperson likened the break-in to the movie, Ocean’s Eleven, and described it as “very professionally executed”, according to the AFP news agency.“A great deal of prior knowledge and/or a great deal of criminal energy must have been involved to plan and carry this out,” the spokesperson told the agency.The bank said “more than 95 percent of the 3,250 customer safe deposit boxes were broken into by unknown perpetrators.”Police say they were alerted to the robbery when a fire al …
