Victims of spectacular German bank heist file lawsuits

Police tape in front of the closed Sparkasse savings bank branch during a Police search in the Buer district in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, Tuesday evening, Jan. 6, 2026, following a break-in into the bank's vault during the Christmas holidays. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

FRANKFURT -- The first lawsuits were filed on Wednesday by victims of a German bank heist in December, when burglars used the quiet Christmas period to drill their way into its vault and make off with millions, a lawyer said.

The lawyer, Daniel Kuhlmann, ⁠said three cases were lodged with a court in ‍Essen, Germany, holding the bank liable for damages for what he called lax security.

Masked thieves last month accessed a branch of a savings bank in the western city of Gelsenkirchen through a parking garage, allowing them to bore into a vault with thousands ​of safety deposit boxes, police have said.

The episode shocked Germany and made headlines internationally. The court in Essen said it was unable to comment at this point.

The bank, Sparkasse Gelsenkirchen, did not ⁠immediately respond to a request for comment, but has said it was itself a victim of the crime and that its premises were “secured in accordance with recognized state-of-the-art technology.”

One of the lawsuits filed ⁠on Wednesday related to a retired person who had almost ‌400,000 euros (US$480,000) in cash in the vault ‌from the sale of an apartment, Kuhlmann said.

Another victim, the CEO of a medium-sized company, had stored cash, jewelry and a Rolex ⁠watch worth around 120,000 euros in total, while a third had around 50,000 euros worth of gold in the vault, the lawyer said.

The bank has said the contents of security boxes are generally insured for ‌10,300 euros each.

Mark Branson, ‍president of Germany’s BaFin banking regulator, said on Wednesday the theft was “spectacular” and “attracted a lot of attention, including the question of what is insured and what customers need to know ‍about insurance coverage."

(US$1 = 0.8348 euros)

By Tom Sims

(Reporting by ‌Tom Sims. Editing by Thomas Seythal and Mark Potter)