Masked robbers threatened staff and customers with guns before making off with tens of thousands of euros from a savings bank today in what was believed to be Germany's first euro crime haul of 2002.
The four-member gang struck at Habkirchen in the southwestern Saarland region and escaped in a stolen car.
Robbers also made off with more than €200,000 from a savings bank at Pinneberg in northern Schleswig-Holstein.
At Markkleeberg near Leipzig in the east, robbers tried in vain to break open an automatic teller machine.
And at a bank in Friesdorf in the Brandenburg region near Berlin, robbers made off with a wall-mounted machine for supplying clients' bank statements, apparently mistaking it for an ATM freshly loaded with new euro notes.
AFP
