Police free 2 people after hostage alarm at German bank but find no perpetrators
Posted May 8, 2026 7:19 am.
Last Updated May 8, 2026 9:46 am.
BERLIN (AP) — Police in Germany entered a bank in a small German town Friday and rescued two people from a locked room, hours after officers were called to respond to a hostage situation.
Regional police said they were alerted to the situation at the Volksbank branch in Sinzig, a town of about 17,000 people in the Rhine valley near Koblenz, at about 9 a.m. local time. They said they believed there were “several perpetrators and hostages” in the bank and the driver of an armored van was a hostage.
Shortly before 3 p.m., police said special forces entered the bank and freed two people unhurt from a locked room. Police said they found no hostage-takers.
They said that the perpetrator or perpetrators appeared to have left immediately after locking the two people into the vault, but it wasn’t clear how that happened.
The Associated Press