The farm shop thief with the expensive e-bike

Created: 09/29/2022, 16:00

By: Birgit Lang

The thief can be clearly seen – but pixelated here – on surveillance images at Martin Wegmann's milk tank.

Once he even pursued the e-biker without success.

© private

Video cameras and advertisements: Martin Wegmann and other farm shop operators defend themselves against thieving customers.

Taufkirchen/Oberding

– Some thieves are getting bolder.

Martin Wegmann has experienced this several times at his milk tank in Stadl west of Taufkirchen.

What he had to experience in the past six years is almost cinematic.

There was even a chase.

Stunned, he talks about the repeat offender, who kept coming by on his high-tech e-bike to use the money changer.

But the "stole", as Wegmann's house name is, installed a video camera in the small shop on the B 388.

Because he and his partner Roswitha Hörl noticed frequent shortfalls in the cash register, they looked at the video recordings and quickly found the culprit.

Masked with a helmet, cycling goggles and a towel, the sporty biker, mostly in a smart blue cycling outfit, stole paper money and then jumped onto his black bike or e-bike.

"Bikes like this cost between 3,000 and 7,000 euros," says Wegmann.

He also has a shot that shows the slender perpetrator's face.

He estimates him to be between 50 and 60 years old and around 1.70 meters tall and with a broad nose.

The last time the thief left the gas station after a coup and got on his bike, Roswitha watched him and immediately called her friend Martin.

The looted cash register in his milk tank makes Markus Wegmann angry.

© Birgit Lang

He stormed to the car and followed the man in the direction of Taufkirchen.

Before the junction to Kirchlern, he caught up with him for the first time.

However, by the time Wegmann got out of the car to grab him, the perpetrator had already got back on his bike and sped off in the direction of Fichtenstrasse.

The farmer resumed pursuit and had meanwhile informed the Dorfen police, who sent out a patrol.

Wegmann kept the officers informed of his location and that of the thief.

Eventually he fled via Atting in the direction of the B 15, closely pursued by Wegmann.

Shortly before the forest, the "Oachegarten", he had to give up the pursuit because he could not drive his car across the freshly tilled field.

So the cyclist escaped in the direction of Kleinstockach.

Another time, a woman with a Landshut number plate took only 20 euros pro forma out of her purse and pretended to put it in the cash register, but put it back in her purse and fled.

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A couple from Pocking in the district of Passau was just as impertinent.

It comfortably packed two bags full of vegetables and other things worth 120 euros and put only 15 euros in the till.

The farming couple also noticed this because they had just taken stock of the goods and cash.

Michael Kattner also had bad experiences in Notzing.

© weekly market 24

The woman and the man were located via the video recordings that the Wegmanns made available to the Dorfen police station.

They showed no remorse. It was only when the police were at the door and threatened to report them and make an entry in their criminal record that the thief called Wegmann and asked him to withdraw the report.

She also doesn't know why she took the 13 two-packs of beef patties, two sacks of potatoes, pasta, flour, pickles and more with her.

But the grandson of the former mayor of Taufkirchen, Bartholomäus Wegmann, did not accept this horse-trading.

"Anyone who steals from me, no matter how much or what, gets reported," he says angrily.

"But we are glad that the vast majority of our customers are returning the trust we have placed in them for six years now and are paying correctly."

Michael Kattner feels the same way.

The farmer has been running a farm shop in Notzing (Oberding municipality) for four years, and he has had to deal with thieves for just as long.

They prefer to steal expensive goods.

Because his farm shop is not next to an inhabited house, the thieves feel safe, he says.

But he has installed a surveillance camera that records everything.

“I can understand everything with the camera.” His thieving “customers” are never at a loss for excuses.

One claimed that she had to go to the bathroom so badly that she couldn't pay, but she still managed to get in and out of "Miche's Haisl" four times.

“There are always scoundrels who take advantage of it.

After an ad, it's quiet again," says the 30-year-old farmer.

Some would even drive down all the farm shops in the area to get money.

When a theft report is filed, the person convicted usually has to pay a fine of 200 euros to a social institution, says Kattner.

Then the procedure will be discontinued again due to insignificance.

A couple who had stolen almost 20 euros from him did not admit the offense in court, and each spouse was sentenced to a fine of 1,300 euros plus legal costs.

They went into revision and ultimately had to pay 1,300 euros to each other.

"But fortunately, 99 percent of my customers are honest and pay for the goods."

But not only the farm shop owners are annoyed by thieves.

The allotment garden operators in Taufkirchen can also sing a song about it.

Again and again strangers get vegetables, fruit and flowers from them.

The prettiest pumpkins were only recently gone, radishes have also been stolen and once all the heads of lettuce were stolen by a gardener, reveals Klaus Stimpfl.

This has nothing to do with the current price increases.

“We have been robbed again and again for years.

Once more, once less.

They know when the thing is ripe and come to harvest from August.”

The thieves even stole vegetables from the greenhouse.

That is why many allotment gardeners have now installed lattice doors in front of them.

These thefts are particularly annoying because you put a lot of love and time into the rearing and are already looking forward to the harvest.

"We would like to thank our anonymous harvest helpers, who do our work for us in the dark and in the dark and deprive us of the fruits of our labor," says Stimpfl ironically.