Victims claim German bank heist targeted Turkish clients

BERLIN

Victims of the recent Sparkasse bank heist in Germany’s Gelsenkirchen have claimed that nearly all 3,300 safe deposit boxes targeted in the robbery belonged to Turkish and Arab clients.

German police this week continued a manhunt for those behind a spectacular bank heist in the western city, where masked robbers drilled through a concrete wall into a vault room and escaped with cash, gold and jewelry worth an estimated $35 million.

A police spokesman likened the break-in to the Hollywood heist film Ocean's Eleven, saying that it was "very professionally executed.”

Ünal Mete, one of the Turkish victims, told the Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency that he initially could not believe a state bank in Germany could be robbed so easily.

"The thieves emptied customers' boxes but didn’t touch the bank’s own vault. They walked out freely," he said.

Mete said that the branch was deliberately chosen because about 95 percent of its boxes are rented by foreign clients, mainly Turks and Arabs.

"It’s clear from the rental records — names like Ömer Faruk and Ünal Mete appear — that this profile was known. This was a deliberate operation," he said.

Victims have organized through a platform, where Mete said only one German is among thousands affected.

"People save and invest their hard-earned money in gold and valuables, believing banks are the safest place. Now, our life savings have been wiped out," he added.

The stolen items exceeded insurance coverage, Mete noted. "The bank offered only 10,000 euros in insurance per box.”

Another Turkish victim Cihat Erhan Bostancı emphasized the sophistication of the crime, saying professional machinery was used to drill through the vault walls, requiring hours of work, large amounts of water and electricity and generating noise comparable to a nightclub.

"How could no one notice this—no vibrations, no sound reports? It’s a huge question mark," he said.

Victims also criticized the bank and local authorities for negligence. Güngör Kalın pointed out that a police station is only 200 meters away, yet alarms failed and access was restricted to bank staff.

Emre Yıldırım noted that official bodies, including the municipal government, offered no public response despite the scale of the heist.

Many victims suspect internal collusion. "Not only the perpetrators, but possibly some bank employees and even security personnel may have been involved," Yıldırım said.

The victims are calling on the Turkish government for legal support to assert their rights and recover losses, emphasizing that their livelihoods and decades of savings have been destroyed in what they see as a systematic and suspicious operation.