More than a year and a half after the theft of millions in the main customs office in Emmerich in North Rhine-Westphalia, four suspects have been identified. A German customs officer is among them. He is said to have provided the thieves with insider information.
After lengthy investigations, the suspects were arrested on Tuesday last week in cooperation with the police in Saxony and the Polish law enforcement authorities in Poland, as the public prosecutor’s office and police in Kleve announced on Wednesday. Among them was a German customs official who acted as a “tip giver”.
The customs officer also has Polish citizenship. The other suspects are a Polish woman who acted primarily as a mediator and two Polish citizens who are said to have committed the burglary.
The arrests were made in Zgorzelec and Karpacz. The accused are now in custody.
On May 10, German police officers searched the two homes of the suspected customs officer in Cologne and Görlitz and his workplace in Bonn. Also in Poland there were a large number of searches. In the neighboring country, independent investigations into the break-in into the main customs office were underway.
The perpetrators broke into the vault of the main customs office on November 1, 2020 with the help of a core drill. According to the police, the burglary was professionally planned and six and a half million euros were stolen.
The customs administration offered a reward of one hundred thousand euros for information about the crime or the perpetrators. The case was also broadcast on the ZDF program “Aktenzeichen XY … unsolved”. Nevertheless, a hot lead was missing for a long time.
Also interesting:
A 13-year-old boy found 14,900 euros in cash at an S-Bahn station. But instead of taking the money he found to the police, he made a nice living with friends and squandered a large part of the sum. Only the parents of the children ended the life of luxury.
