Police in Spain have arrested and extradited a 70-year-old suspect in a spectacular bank robbery 12 years ago in the German city of Aachen.
The Spanish national was apprehended in Zaragoza in late July and handed over to German authorities on Friday, the Aachen police reported on Friday.
He is alleged to have robbed the PAX-Bank in November 2014 along with several accomplices, netting themselves a haul of more than €400,000 ($461,000).
At least five perpetrators first overpowered cleaning staff in the building's stairwell. They then intercepted 16 bank employees at the entrance, threatened them with firearms and bounded them with cable ties.
Two employees were finally forced at gunpoint to open the safe before the robbers fled with the loot, leaving behind them clothing and other items used in the heist.
A 33-year-old woman was arrested and sentenced in 2017 to seven and a half years in prison for her involvement in the robbery. Now, investigators have detained a second suspect. However, at least three other participants in the crime remain at large.
According to police, there are indications that the same group of perpetrators committed three additional bank robberies in Aachen between 2009 and 2013.
The investigation so far suggests that, at the time of the crime, the two arrested individuals belonged to a "Europe-wide network of left-wing populist or far-left extremist groups," a police statement said.