The temptation must have been too great for the man from Pforzheim. Again and again he is said to have stolen gold shavings from his jewelry company, shavings worth millions. Now a court has to decide on a sentence. Not the first time in such a case.
Pforzheim (dpa / lsw) – He is said to have accessed dozens of times to collect and pocket the gold filings. According to the indictment, the employee repeatedly took the valuable stolen loot from the jewelry company home with him for years, melted it down in his garden shed and sold it in bars to fences in Cologne. The value: around 1.67 million euros. Now the district court in Karlsruhe wants to pronounce a verdict against the alleged thief from Pforzheim, the German jewelry town, this Friday (9:00 a.m.).
According to the indictment, the man, who sometimes confessed, took the opportunity to steal the gold shavings from the production of gold rings a total of 66 times. From the point of view of the prosecution, chat logs from the man’s mobile phone should prove this, as well as video recordings. The 50-year-old was arrested at the end of last year. The trial takes place in front of the branch of the Karlsruhe Regional Court at the Pforzheim District Court.
Not an isolated case, but not the norm in the industry either. While the safety concepts in the refineries are very high and efficient, there are always similar cases everywhere, says York Tetzlaff, Managing Director of the Fachvereinigung Edelmetalle (FVEM). “There are supposed opportunities. And when these come together with the handling of valuable materials and criminal energy, then that can happen.” Refining establishments primarily protect themselves with pocket and body scanners, there is a strict four-eyes principle, some companies also have special shoe brushes for possible production residues or sticky floor coverings, and the amount of precious metals running through the company is continuously measured.
Again and again employees, especially outside the refineries, succumb to the temptation and smuggle gold filings out of the production facilities. At the end of March, a man in Regensburg was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for allegedly stealing fine gold filings. Overall, it was about stolen goods with a total weight of at least 68.4 kilograms. The judges estimated the value of the stolen goods at around 1.13 million euros. The man had kept about 400,000 euros for himself. The rest had gone to a middleman who had resold the gold. In the verdict, the man was also charged with four cases of drug trafficking.
