A good three years ago, almost one million euros disappeared from a vault of the Düsseldorf district savings bank. To this day, the perpetrator has not been identified. The case only became known when the financial institution and insurance company argued in court.
Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) – In the process of an empty vault of the Düsseldorf district savings bank, significant security gaps have become known. “Everyone who works there was able to access the keys. That gives me a bit of a headache,” said the presiding judge on Thursday at the end of the several-hour hearing in the civil lawsuit at the Düsseldorf district court.
An unknown person cleared the vault completely on June 26, 2019 – there has been no trace of 934,000 euros since then. The police investigations into three suspects have since been discontinued: the suspicion against none of them could be substantiated. The Kreissparkasse Düsseldorf would now like to have the missing sum reimbursed by their insurance company, but they are blocked (Az.: 9 O 333/21).
Although you needed three keys to get from the room with the customer lockers through two doors to the vault, bank employees who were interviewed as witnesses said unanimously. But these three keys were kept together in a gray box, as a bank clerk testified. Practically every employee had access to the keys – which was not recorded.
In the meantime, the processes have changed and the money is kept at a different location, reported the manager of the branch in Erkrath, from whose vault the money disappeared when he was not the boss there.
While the district savings bank argues that it could have been a burglary and that there are corresponding lever marks on a door, the defendant insurance company denies this. The question of whether the sum must be reimbursed depends on this.
The money was gone from the vault on June 26, 2019. The witnesses reported that there had never been any differences between the actual cash holdings and the bookkeeping. Every month was counted completely, a record was kept of every arrival and departure.
But on that day the difference was suddenly 100 percent. The vault was empty. “The money is gone,” reported the employee, who wanted to bring the “daily income” down at the end of the day. She noticed that the door in front of the vault was only closed. The 38-year-old said, however, that she was sure that she would have completed it twice at noon, as was usual.
The regional court had suggested that the insurance pay 40 percent of the missing sum. But the district savings bank’s lawyer refused – on the basis of which one could not agree on a comparison. At the end of the negotiation, he brought 50 percent into play as his own proposal. The lawyer for the insurance company promised to pass on the offer – but he could not recommend it.
Because the fact that lever marks were discovered on a door does not mean that it was actually broken open. “It was an insider. That’s clear,” said the insurance company’s lawyer.
According to the witnesses, the burglar would also have had to get through the vault door, which could only be opened with two keys at the same time. There was no video surveillance in front of or in the vault.
When her colleague came upstairs and said that the money was gone, she initially thought it was a joke, reported a 48-year-old bank clerk – especially since she was there at lunchtime to count it and everything was still in order. In disbelief, she rushed downstairs herself and looked everywhere: “All the compartments were empty.”
Whoever took all the money didn’t leave a signature this time. The court has set a hearing date for November 17.
