Police have released pictures of an extraordinary bank heist which saw thieves steal £26million from safe deposit boxes.
The brazen raid in Germany went undetected for days over the Christmas period - and has been compared to Ocean's Eleven for the massive hole in the wall left behind by the criminals.
A masked gang, thought to number two or three individuals, gained entry through a parking garage.
They then navigated through multiple secured doors to reach an archive room next to the vault.
Criminals are thought to have used professional-grade equipment to bore through an 18-inch reinforced concrete wall.
Experts estimate the drilling took between two and four hours - with a 20kg industrial drill with a synthetic diamond-coated crown the tool of choice.
"You can't buy that kind of drill at a hardware store," a police spokesman said.
But now, furious customers have demanded answers about how such a crime could go undetected for so long.
Officers were only called to the bank in Gelsenkirchen on Monday morning after a fire alarm sounded inside the building.
The thieves had long since fled by that point.
Investigators believe the break-in occurred during the holidays, or even the weekend before.
PICTURED: Gelsenkirchen police during Euro 2024. 'You can't buy that kind of drill at a hardware store,' a spokesman for the force said
|GETTY
When emergency crews arrived, they found a large hole had been drilled through the vault wall.
The heist also required jerry cans, hoses and a pump to keep the machinery cool during the lengthy drilling process.
Once inside, the thieves emptied as many safe deposit boxes as possible before escaping through the hole they had created.
The vault contained roughly 3,300 boxes of various sizes, rented by around 2,700 customers.
Some customers held multiple boxes.
Police believe up to 90 per cent of the boxes were broken into.
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According to Bild, each lock box carries insurance of up to €10,300 (£8,980).
This means the bank could face claims totalling €33,990,000, equivalent to approximately £30million.
A spokesman for the bank said: "Reaching out to customers is our top priority... We will definitely be contacting all safe deposit box holders."
Police said the full extent of the damage remains under investigation.
"This includes securing forensic evidence and looking for possible witnesses who may have heard suspicious noises or observed anything unusual in recent days," a local force spokesman said.
Officers are examining vehicle movements and speaking with local residents - but no promising leads have emerged so far.
The case echoes the infamous 2015 Hatton Garden heist in London, where elderly career criminals drilled through a vault wall to steal millions in valuables.
The perpetrators behind the German heist remain at large.
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