Bank Robbers On Endangered List In Germany

Posted by African Examiner Europe, Latest Headlines Monday, November 15th, 2021

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Bank robbers seem to be a dying breed in Germany, the number of robberies at banks, savings institutions and post offices have dropped by 95 per cent over the past three decades.

This is according to a 1993 report, in which the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) counted 1,623 robberies of “financial institutions and post offices’’.

Last year there were only 80.

The Police, banks and insurers saw several reasons for the phenomenon.

In the mid-1990s, there were almost 70,000 bank branches in Germany; at the end of last year, there were 24,000, according to Germany’s central bank.

Bank robbers, therefore, have less choice of target today than in the past.

Added to this are technological progress and the decreasing importance of cash.

Furthermore, the risk for the perpetrators was extraordinarily high, the Police were able to solve three-quarters of the robberies.

“If additional security measures, such as low cash holdings, lead to correspondingly low expectations when it comes to loot, robberies were becoming unattractive crimes from a risk-benefit point of view,’’ said a BKA spokesperson.

AFP