Police in Germany have been shamed for boasting about their bid to recover an influencer’s stolen handbags while crime rates soar.

Latest records show the number of crimes committed across the country has shot up by nearly ten per cent to 6,762 crimes per 1,000 people in just a year.

Now police chiefs in Hamburg have become a laughing stock as they brag about their attempts to crack a single burglary at a pampered performer’s apartment.

The theft took place when Dutch model Sylvie Meis – who shows off her extensive designer handbag collection on social media – was on holiday in Ibiza in July.

Making it easy for the thieves, Meis, 45, posted regular updates for her 1.4 million Instagram followers showing that her apartment was empty.

The crooks fled with 25 designer handbags and jewellery worth a total of around EUR 800,000 (GBP 686,564), German media reported.

Now in a bid to solve the celebrity crime city police have launched a poster campaign and set up a special hotline dedicated to that single crime.

They also said information can be given in person at any Hamburg police station and be treated “in confidence”.

But the campaign has infuriated critics who say police should be spending their time cracking real villains as the list of unsolved cases rises with the crime rate.

One – Facebook user Mike Mueller – said: “We pay the police for such crap. Most bags are probably promotional gifts anyway. Police could rather invest their time in something better.”

And user Casa Ela commented: “And when someone breaks in a grandma’s around the corner, nothing happens…”

Meis owes much of her fame to her eight-year marriage to Dutch former footie ace Rafael van der Vaart, which ended in 2013.

The attacking midfielder played for Tottenham Hotspur from 2010 to 2012. The former couple’s son, Damian Rafael, was born in 2006.

The blonde model, who is a breast cancer survivor, married German contemporary artist Niclas Castello in 2020, but the couple separated earlier this year.