Through a pair of tunnels dug in advance, four artful dodgers vanished with at least $3.5 million from a Berlin bank where they had held 16 people hostage for much of a day.
"There was a certain indisputable artfulness to this crime," city police commissioner Hagen Saberschinsky admitted after the escape early Wednesday through a 100-strong police cordon.There was still no trace Thursday of the four, who had tricked police into thinking they had been surprised in the middle of a holdup.
A passing policeman spotted the four masked and heavily armed men Tuesday morning entering the Commerzbank branch in the wealthy Zehlendorf district. The supposed getaway van was blocked and police quickly surrounded the building.
The robbers then demanded a getaway car, a helicopter and $12 million in German marks. Police said the gunmen brought sandwiches and mineral water, prepared for a long siege.
The gunmen threatened to shoot a hostage in the leg if their demands were not met. After nine hours, police clad only in swimsuits delivered 5 million marks to a bank entrance in plastic garbage bags.
About five hours later, the four gunmen slid through a hole they had chiseled in the 2.5-inch-thick concrete basement floor and into a 2-foot-wide tunnel they had dug leading to a storm sewer, 65 feet away.
Some 320 feet down the sewer was another tunnel they had dug, this one 165 feet long, leading to a garage. From there they slipped through a police cordon and disappeared.
When police commandos finally stormed the bank before dawn Wednesday, the robbers had been gone for two hours.