Daylight robbery
March 21, 2010
Two weeks after a spectacular daylight robbery at a poker tournament in Berlin police have arrested all four suspects who had made off with nearly a quarter of a million euros.
The 19- and 20-year-old pair were detained separately around noon and late Saturday at Berlin's main Tegel airport. Both men had informed police through their lawyers that they would be traveling back to Germany from Istanbul and Beirut. Authorities had issued an international arrest warrants for the alleged robbers.
The German leg of the European Poker Tour attracted around 950 participants including German tennis legend Boris Becker who had been eliminated from the competition a day before the March 6 heist.
On Monday, a 21-year-old German national surrendered to police, naming his three accomplices. A 20-year-old suspect was later arrested by police on a routine patrol two days later.
The four masked men, of Turkish and Arabic origins, burst into Grand Hyatt hotel near Berlin's central Potsdamer Platz threatening security personnel and hotel workers with machetes and handguns. The scenes were captured on security surveillance cameras.
A security guard grabbed one of assailant's bag with half a million euros of prize money, preventing the robbers getting away with even more of the one million jackpot.
nrt/Reuters/dpa
Editor: Andreas Illmer