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Manhunt for thieves in Germany who stole hundreds of passports, ID’s and finger scanning devices

Thieves in Germany stole a heavy safe with hundreds of new ID’s and passports in East Germany. Authorities have said the thieves also took two finger-scanning devices.

The safe was taken from a German city registration office on Wednesday. there was a similar case of robbery that also happened in Germany, we wrote about it here>>.

DW reported that the Deputy mayor of the eastern German city of Kothen, Stephanie Behrendt, said “many hundreds of new identity cards and passports” had been in the lifted safe, which weighed 750 kilograms (1,650 pounds).

The city of 27,000 told residents awaiting issue of their identity documents that their stolen IDs had been disabled electronically, federal authorities had listed them as stolen and unusable, and new ones would be issued.

Palm-sized identity cards in Germany, known as Personalausweise, normally have electronic chips storing identity details, including the holder’s fingerprint.

READ ALSO: German police probe Dresden jewellery theft arresting suspects in a raid

Köthen’s Mayor Bernd Hauschild apologized in a letter to affected residents over the inconvenience, also urging vigilance because city uniforms had also been stolen, Mitteldeutshe Zeitung (MZ) newspaper reported.

Also stolen, said Behrendt, were devices such as two finger-print scanners and a printer normally used by the registry office to generate temporary identification.

Saxony-Anhalt police are investigating the case and told German news agency DPA that unknown perpetrators had entered city administration offices in Kothen, which was once home to composer Johann Sebastian Bach.

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