Dachau District Court hears royal theft of coins - damage over 135,000 euros

Created: 05/26/2022, 19:00

By: Stefanie Zipfer

26 valuable gold rounds were stolen from a mint in the Dachau district.

There is no trace of the stolen goods.

So far, the thief has not been prosecuted.

© Arne Dedert/dpa

Gold coins worth around 140,000 euros were stolen from a medium-sized coin minting company in the Dachau district.

For the company, the culprit is clear: a long-time employee plagued by debt.

In court, however, the supposed evidence faltered.

Dachau –

On April 21, 2021, Queen Elizabeth II turned 95.

For this reason, a mint located in the district of Dachau, but well known far beyond the region, designed a special coin: a piece of gold weighing exactly 95 grams, decorated with the portrait of the most famous woman in the world.

"Maybe we'll do something like that once in ten years," says the company boss, explaining this special product.

The 51-year-old has been running the company for over 20 years.

During this time, his mint has grown to 150 employees, operates at a state-of-the-art location - but is still small enough that the boss knows his employees, that he also supports them in private matters and sometimes helps out with a loan.

This was particularly the case in the case of a 45-year-old Vietnamese man who lives in Munich, has worked for the company for 17 years, has been through a divorce and has a dangerous tendency to gamble.

The Vietnamese was called “Den Hung” in the company, although his name was completely different.

Suspect suddenly called in sick

According to the company boss, the Vietnamese was “very fast and very accurate”, because of his excellent knowledge of German he was able to mediate between the company management and the other 40 Vietnamese in the company and always stuttered the boss’s 500, 1000 or 2000 euro loans his salary.

He only became conspicuous on April 16, 2021, when he suddenly called in sick.

A few days later, on April 19, 2021, the company found that 26 so-called gold rounds with a total value of 135,850 euros were missing.

Blanks are blanks which, after appropriate processing, become the finished coin.

The missing 26 discs were planned for the Queen Elizabeth Birthday Series.

The company then began to view several hours of video material from the surveillance cameras.

Together with the stories of some colleagues that "the Hung" had recently gotten into difficult circles and had even stolen money from his partner, the noose tightened.

The company gave the 45-year-old a notice of termination on suspicion and filed a complaint for theft.

On Tuesday, all sides met again in front of the district court.

The accused was represented by attorney Atilla Graf von Stillfried, who did a great job - by shaking up many of the indications against his client.

The video recordings, for example, turned out to be not very meaningful.

There is also no trace of the coins, house searches at the 45-year-old and his partner had brought nothing to light.

According to the responsible investigator, the accused Vietnamese even behaved "cooperatively".

According to von Stillfried, his lifestyle also does not indicate that the 45-year-old has recently become more than 135,000 euros richer.

Company boss admits: "You can call it naive"

In addition: Although there were prescribed work processes in the company, the production process was changed due to the corona.

The fact that some employees took unauthorized paths through the building or pushed their car loaded with the gold rounds into corners that were not captured by the surveillance cameras did not seem to bother anyone.

"Yes, from today's point of view one might call that naive," summarizes the company boss.

But with the values ​​that are used in his company, “trust is part of it”.

And "Hung, he has never abused our trust up to that point"!

In the end, even the prosecutor admitted, the suspicions were not enough.

“We have to prove without any gaps that he committed the crime.

We have to be 100,000 percent convinced.

That is not the case here.” Judge Christian Calame was not able to reach a guilty verdict either.

Of course there is “strong evidence”, but in criminal law the following applies: “In dubio pro reo.

We have to acquit him.” The costs of the proceedings are borne by the state treasury.

You can find more current news from the district of Dachau at Merkur.de/Dachau.