Polish car smugglers in court Less than two minutes to steal a car

BONN/RHEIN-SIEG · A Polish car theft gang faces charges in a Bonn court. They are accused of stealing 18 cars in Bonn and the region. Their smuggling operation took the cars over the border into Poland.

The thieves didn’t even need two minutes to break into the locked cars and access the on-board computer, allowing them to take the precious loot to a safe place until it was driven across the border to Poland, leaving no trace for investigators. On Wednesday, a 58-year-old Pole and his 35-year-old son had to face charges in a Bonn court for 18 cases of car theft. A 36-year-old accomplice, also from Poland, allegedly drove the cars across the border and he is also being charged. An extradition request was made to Poland for another member of the car theft gang.

While the son confessed to the crimes, the 58-year-old father, who had previously been convicted of human trafficking, remained silent about the allegations. The son provided detailed information about the car theft operation and how they looked in particular for three makes of cars; the VW T5, Citroen C3 / C4 and the Peugot 508.

In Bonn, they found what they were looking for, also in the Rhein-Sieg district, and once in neighboring Sinzig. To smuggle them over the border to Poland, they equipped the stolen cars with Polish license plates, which they had previously taken from other vehicles. Another precaution they took was to immediately take out the GPS systems in the cars so they could not be traced. If they couldn’t locate the GPS, they would just leave the car on the roadside or in the forest.

Because the father and son didn’t want to risk getting caught driving the stolen cars over the German/Polish border, they paid drivers to cross the border. The drivers are said to have received a wage of around 350 euros per trip. But the car thieves didn’t trust the drivers completely so they were not only “escorted” during these trips, but also provided with cheap cell phones. When they got to the Polish border, they were informed about the drop-off point. But not all of these trips went off without a hitch. The son and the alleged accomplice had no valid driving license, and this was an issue in regular controls at the border. It prompted the chair of the courtroom to remark, "How embarrassing is that, to have no driver's license if you steal cars?”

For the defendants, there was another strike against them. An earlier accomplice of their car theft gang was caught in a police inspection and he “talked” to the police. It allowed the police to put the band under extensive surveillance for six months, until they were arrested in March 2018. They have been in custody since then.

(Orig. text: Ulrike Schödel; Translation: ck)

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