Policewomen in front of an attacked bank in Berlin Schöneberg: A 39-year-old was arrested
Photo: Paul Zinken / dpaInformation from the population led to the arrest of a man who is said to have attacked two financial institutions in Berlin on Tuesday. The police are very sure that it is the wanted man from the surveillance videos of the banks, said a spokeswoman.
A special task force arrested the alleged perpetrator on Wednesday morning in his apartment on nearby Eisenacher Strasse in Schöneberg, the police said. Evidence was also discovered there, said the police spokeswoman. She did not say whether any money was found.
The 39-year-old is said to be brought before a judge after being questioned. Whether he will be in custody will not be known until Thursday morning, said the spokeswoman. Nothing is known about the motive for the two attacks.
Employee went into shock
The wanted bank robber, who wore a corona mask, fled on a bicycle after the two attacks in the Schöneberg district and on Kurfürstendamm. He had previously threatened employees with a knife. A 49-year-old employee suffered a shock, no one else was injured in the robberies. The perpetrator took prey in a bank. The police have not yet given the amount of the sum.
It was remarkable that the robber entered the branches of Commerzbank quite casually in flip-flops. The first alarm was received by the officers from Schöneberg at around 9.25 a.m. At 10 o'clock the alarm from Ku'damm followed. The branches are about three kilometers apart. The police quickly assumed that the attacks could involve the same perpetrator.
Banks do not hold large amounts of cash
Bank robberies are now rare because banks no longer keep large sums of cash open, but instead use the machines to pay out the money. In addition, there are usually safes with time locks that cannot be opened immediately. The pros among the criminals are more interested in lockers in the banks where gold or cash is stored. Or they attack money transporters and jewelers.
However, the last time there was an attack on a bank on Berlin's Bundesplatz was in early August. The masked perpetrators rammed a window grille of the bank in a courtyard with a van and got into the branch. They were surprised by a security guard who they shot and injured several times. Then the robbers set fire to the van and fled on foot without prey to the nearby city highway. They got into a waiting getaway car and escaped - previously unrecognized.
A few days earlier, robbers had tried to ambush a money messenger in a bank branch on Hermannplatz in Berlin-Neukölln. The police are checking whether there is a connection and whether there are any traces or clues leading to criminal members of clans of Arab descent who have carried out multiple attacks on money transports and department stores as well as break-ins in banks in recent years.
Icon: The mirrorkko / dpa