Lars Mittank

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

Bundespolizei German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA)

Missing From:

Varna, Bulgaria

Summary:

Lars Joachim Mittank is a German man who disappeared on July 8, 2014, near Varna Airport in Varna, Bulgaria. The fight resulted in Mittank suffering an injured jaw and a ruptured eardrum. The case remains unsolved.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Disappearance:

On 30 June 2014, 28-year-old Mittank travelled with five of his friends to Varna, Bulgaria. It was his first journey outside of Germany. The group was on holiday at the Golden Sands, a popular seaside resort just outside of the city of Varna. On 6 July 2014, the day before they were supposed to return home, Mittank and his companions were at a bar in town, and Mittank got into a disagreement with some other German nationals over football. Mittank, a fan of the football club SV Werder Bremen, had differences with fans of FC Bayern Munich. He then parted from his friends outside a restaurant after leaving the bar, and disappeared for the rest of the night. Mittank turned up at the resort the following morning and told his friends he was beaten up by four men hired by the group in the bar whom he disagreed with the night before. The fight resulted in Mittank suffering an injured jaw and a ruptured eardrum. He went and saw a doctor who advised him not to fly due to his injury, and prescribed the antibiotic Cefprozil (500 mg). Mittank's friends wanted to stay with him, but he insisted he was fine on his own, and told them to follow the original travel plan and fly home on 7 July, which they did. Mittank checked out of the resort the same time as his friends, and checked into the Hotel Color Varna for one night. The hotel was cheap and close to the airport. However, a day after his friends left, he began to act paranoid. While at the hotel, Mittank called his mother, Sandra Mittank. In a whisper, he told her that people were trying to kill or rob him and that she should cancel his credit cards. The closed-circuit television cameras in the hotel recorded him pacing up and down the halls, looking out windows, and hiding in an elevator. At 1:00 a.m., he left the hotel before returning about an hour later. Mittank was last seen at Varna Airport on 8 July 2014, the day that he was hoping to fly home to Germany. He texted his mother that he had arrived at the airport. He went to consult with the airport doctor, Kosta Kostov. Kostov later described his behaviour as "nervous and erratic". According to Kostov, he told Mittank that he was fine and could return home. However, Mittank did not leave his office, expressing doubt about the medication that he was taking. At that time, a construction worker entered the office. The airport was undergoing renovation at the time. Kostov said that Mittank then began to tremble. He yelled: "I don't want to die here! I have to get out of here!" He then got up and fled the office. He left behind all of his luggage, which included his wallet, mobile phone, and passport. He was captured by airport security cameras fleeing the terminal.

Additional Details:

Lars began exhibiting erratic behavior before suddenly sprinting out of the airport. He scaled a barbed wire fence and disappeared into a nearby sunflower field, never to be seen again. Extensive searches by Bulgarian authorities, tracker dogs, and volunteers turned up nothing. No body, no clothing, no clues. It was as if he had vanished into thin air. German police, including the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), became involved shortly after, liaising with Bulgarian counterparts from July 2014 onward through international channels such as Interpol to facilitate joint inquiries. Mittank's family, led by his mother Sandra, hired private investigator Andreas Gütig in the months following the disappearance to probe hospital records, witness statements, and potential sightings in Bulgaria, though the investigation produced no breakthroughs. In 2016, police thought they had located Mittank after seeing a man with similar looks walking along a highway in Porto Velho, Brazil. The man was disoriented and had no identification. A photo of him lying in the hospital began spreading on social media, and people started to theorize that he was Mittank. However, the police later identified the man as Anton Pilipa, a Canadian who went missing five years before. About a year after his disappearance, a truck driver thought he saw him hitchhiking in Varna. In 2019, a German truck driver gave a hitchhiker a ride from Dresden to Schildow in Oberhavel, Brandenburg. His mother has expressed belief that he is still alive, possibly having lost his memory. By May 2018, less than four years after his disappearance, the security footage of him in the airport had been viewed more than 16 million times. As of July 2025, the investigation remains active and unresolved, with the family continuing to seek information through media appeals and a Facebook group, "Findet Lars Mittank," which has over 55,000 members.

Case Last Updated:

May 12, 2026