Authorities say updates will continue as the investigation progresses, with more information to follow.

Victims will be scheduled for interviews via a dedicated hotline to inform ongoing investigations and potentially generate new lines of inquiry.

Police will begin questioning more than 3,000 Sparkassen customers victimized in the Gelsenkirchen heist, using specially rented offices to handle lengthy interviews, with the process expected to take several weeks.

Law firms are preparing actions for victims, with an information session planned in Schalke to outline potential civil damages, with initial filings expected in Essen next week.

Police estimate the total damage in the mid double-digit millions of euros, with a realistic projection in the hundreds of millions as the investigation continues.

Boy reports from Bild suggest the burglars used a garden hose to cool a core drill, indicating prior experience with drilling equipment and heat management, with a 20-meter hose connection found in a women’s restroom.

The investigation references a broader reconstruction published by Spiegel and related articles detailing how the burglars operated and the security gaps they exploited.

Interviews will focus on the contents of violated safety deposit boxes to gather victims’ details and uncover potential new leads.

Investigators are compiling detailed victim information on the contents of around 3,100 security boxes that were emptied, leaving hundreds of thousands of items to catalog and return.

Police will let each victim specify the contents of their safe deposit box, with that information feeding into the investigation for potential new leads.

A dedicated BAO ‘Bohrer’ unit of about 230 officers is handling the case, supported by extensive data and video analysis, including roughly 11 million cell-tower records and about eight terabytes of video.

The theft involved drilling directly into the vault and bypassing multiple security systems to raid over 3,000 customer safety deposit boxes, with questions focused on why the alarm was not triggered.