The group of four men smashed the Ford Fiesta through glass doors of the Alexa shopping centre at 5.30am on Sunday, and charged 45 metres through the main concourse, the Tagesspiegel newspaper reported.

The group jumped out of the car, ran up the escalator to the centre's branch of electronics giant Media Markt, where they sprinted 50 metres through the shop to the phone section and grabbed as many handsets as they could.

Abandoning the Fiesta in the popular shopping mall, which was due to open on Sunday mid-morning, the men got into a black Audi, which was waiting near the escalator, and had been driven in after the Fiesta.

Alexa's press team declined to comment after the incident and it remained unclear whether security at the centre would be tightened.

The incident mirrored a raid in the Steglitz area of the city at the end of October. Burglars drove through the front window of a pawnbrokers – also in a stolen Ford Fiesta, before jumping into a waiting dark Audi.

Berlin's State Office for Criminal Investigations has taken over the case and are looking to see whether it could be the same group as other break-ins.

Alexa shopping centre opened at 1pm, by which time there was barely any sign of the break-in. Just one entrance was closed off.