Police are hunting for a suspect after a 147-foot underground tunnel was used to launch an audacious raid on a Berlin bank.

The thief or thieves tunneled into a vault at the Berliner Volksbank in the Steglitz district of Berlin from an underground garage nearby, and looted the entire contents of multiple safety deposit boxes. Police do not yet know the value of the heist, as the boxes contained personal valuables that customers are not required to identify to authorities.

Police say the crime is the work of a "professional", and reckon work may have started on the tunnel as early as February last year.