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CRIME

Thieves dig 30-metre tunnel to rob bank

Berlin fire fighters called on Monday to an underground garage put out a blaze only to find a 30-metre-long tunnel leading to the vaults of a nearby bank - which had been emptied.

Published: 14 January 2013 15:12 CET
Thieves dig 30-metre tunnel to rob bank
Photo: DPA

The fire, which police believe was begun by the thieves in an attempt to erase any evidence and cause a distraction while they robbed the bank, broke out at around 6:15 am theTagesspiegel regional paper reported.

The thieves had smashed through reinforced concrete to dig their tunnel, meaning they must have had access to heavy duty equipment.

Police were still examining the scene in the Steglitz area of the capital on Monday afternoon and are yet to have found any clues pointing to suspects, despite thorough questioning of people living in the area.

Exactly how much money was stolen from the Volksbank branch has not been revealed and police said they had no idea where the ground excavated from the tunnel had ended up.

A similar incident took place in the southern part of Berlin in 1995, when an 11-strong gang tunnelled into a bank in Zehlendorf and took 16 hostages as well as several million euros.

The Local/jcw

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CRIME

Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

A 17-year-old has turned himself in to police in Germany after an attack on a lawmaker that the country's leaders decried as a threat to democracy.

Published: 5 May 2024 12:52 CEST
Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

The teenager reported to police in the eastern city of Dresden early Sunday morning and said he was “the perpetrator who had knocked down the SPD politician”, police said in a statement.

Matthias Ecke, 41, European parliament lawmaker for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), was set upon by four attackers as he put up EU election posters in Dresden on Friday night, according to police.

Ecke was “seriously injured” and required an operation after the attack, his party said.

Scholz on Saturday condemned the attack as a threat to democracy.

“We must never accept such acts of violence,” he said.

Ecke, who is head of the SPD’s European election list in the Saxony region, was just the latest political target to be attacked in Germany.

Police said a 28-year-old man putting up posters for the Greens had been “punched” and “kicked” earlier in the evening on the same Dresden street.

Last week two Greens deputies were abused while campaigning in Essen in western Germany and another was surrounded by dozens of demonstrators in her car in the east of the country.

According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed against politicians in Germany in 2023, up from 1,806 the previous year, but less than the 2,840 recorded in 2021, when legislative elections took place.

A group of activists against the far right has called for demonstrations against the attack on Ecke in Dresden and Berlin on Sunday, Der Spiegel magazine said.

According to the Tagesspiegel newspaper, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser is planning to call a special conference with Germany’s regional interior ministers next week to address violence against politicians.

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