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Coat of arms of the Berlin police on a police jacket (picture from 2015): a former head of the police department is accused of embezzling funds
Photo: Tim Brakemeier / dpa
A former head of the Berlin police department has to answer for allegations of breach of trust.
The now suspended 60-year-old officer is said to have embezzled a total of around 72,000 euros from the police and embezzled a scooter, the public prosecutor announced on Friday.
Accordingly, it is about a total of 16 acts that were indicted by the lay judges of the Tiergarten District Court.
As a possible motive, the public prosecutor's office cites the official's financial difficulties "due to a tendency to gamble".
The crimes were ultimately uncovered during internal police checks.
According to the information, the police officer was responsible as head of a commissariat for providing logistics for covert measures by the Berlin police.
Among other things, he and his colleagues were to maintain apartments used for investigations and maintain vehicles.
Between September 2017 and December 2021, the man is said to have exploited gaps in internal police control mechanisms in 15 cases, in particular due to the trust placed in him.
In this way he is said to have achieved that sums of money were handed over to him in cash on a regular basis.
According to the indictment, the sums varied between around 271 euros for a tire change and 13,500 euros for the furnishing of an apartment used by the police.
The accused also received payments for car repairs, the alleged purchase of a scooter or the installation of auxiliary heaters in cars.
The accused is said to have kept a service scooter that he was given to use.
ani/AFP
