Systematic undeclared work at a pizza delivery service – employees themselves alerted the authorities
Created: 11/28/2022, 6:54 p.m
By: Stefan Aigner
The managing directors of a pizza delivery service have to answer to the district court of Regensburg.
© Michael Gstettenbauer/Imago
The public prosecutor's office accuses the managers of a Regensburg pizza delivery service of having run their business with systematic illegal employment.
Regensburg – Two managing directors of a pizza delivery service are currently having to answer to the Regensburg District Court.
It is about almost 100,000 euros in unpaid social security contributions and a business model that seems to have been systematically based on undeclared work.
Illegal employment in pizzeria: Mainly men from India and Pakistan
Above all, men from India and Pakistan are said to have been illegally employed there for several years.
According to witnesses, they are said to have slept in a dormitory right next to the kitchen in the pizzeria.
In some cases, something was even deducted from their wages.
At best, they were only registered to a small extent, and to a large extent not at all.
According to the indictment, this form of undeclared work was “at least since the end of 2016”, i.e. from the start of the business registration, the common model of the pizza delivery service in the east of Regensburg.
Illegal employment in a Regensburg pizzeria: the manager sat down
Customs officials found this out during a first raid in 2019.
The then official managing director was subsequently replaced, but the illegal employment practice apparently continued unabated.
Only a new formal managing director was installed.
The proceedings against the first managing director have now been discontinued.
She seems to have dropped out.
The authorities do not know her current whereabouts.
Two other responsible persons have to answer before the district court.
Illegal employment in pizzeria: Two managers in court
One is a Pakistani citizen, 38 years old, and, according to the indictment, has been running the business since 2016.
He only seems to speak bad German.
He needs an interpreter in court.
The other is a 59-year-old businessman from Ingolstadt, who took over the role of formal managing director after the raid in 2019 and, according to witnesses, had appeared in the pizzeria one or two times before - as a "supporter" of the former managing director.
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Undeclared work in a pizzeria: almost 100,000 euros in damage
In a total of 63 cases, social security contributions are said not to have been paid, which means almost 100,000 euros.
This is punishable as a withholding and embezzlement of wages.
However, the clarification of the allegations by the lay judges chaired by Judge Thomas Schug is proving difficult.
An unknown number of illegal employees is not known to the investigators due to a lack of documents.
At best, the investigators have first or nicknames.
And the two accused remain silent.
Undeclared work in pizzeria: defenders describe evidence as “poor”
An initial legal discussion between the court, the public prosecutor's office and the defense at the beginning of the hearing does not yield any results.
The court points out that a confession will shorten the procedure considerably and can therefore have a significantly mitigating effect on the sentence.
But that doesn't convince the two defendants.
Your defense attorney Dr.
Konrad Brenninger and Dr.
Georg Karl describe the basis determined by customs for estimating the social security damage as "poor".
That might be enough for the German pension insurance, says Karl, but not for a criminal conviction.
Undeclared work in a pizzeria: investigations were difficult
Indeed, according to two customs officials who are being questioned as witnesses, it took a great deal of work to establish the number of actual workers and unreported hours worked.
On the one hand, the opening hours of the delivery service were used, on the other hand, the few documents found.
Above all, however, a number of employees were interviewed.
Some of these spoke of more than five employees, kitchen workers and drivers who were needed to keep operations running during a shift.
However, lower figures were assumed in favor of the accused and only one or two cooks and two drivers were used.
This resulted in a “massive shortfall” between the hours required for the work and the hours actually reported.
Sickness periods, holiday entitlements or preparation times in the kitchen were not even taken into account.
Undeclared work in a pizzeria: whistleblowers put customs on the track
The employees, insofar as they were known by name and could be interviewed, hardly spoke any German.
Interpreters were needed several times.
Customs tracked the whole thing down through tips from employees who, despite their difficult situation, dared to contact the authorities.
In the run-up to another raid in October 2020, it was a person who had not received his agreed salary.
Illegal employment: Affected lured with a lot of black money?
The man was poached by another pizzeria.
He had been promised that he would be officially registered for a few hours but would be able to work much more.
A customs officer speaks of 240 hours a month.
The man was to receive a large part of the money "black".
But the man never saw this money.
That's why he turned to the authorities - and the illegal employment practice flew up again after early 2019 and the replacement of the formal managing director, who then fled.
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Despite the court's suggestion: the accused remain silent
Towards the end of the first day of the trial and the questioning of several witnesses, Judge Thomas Schug tries again.
The customs procedure criticized by the defense lawyers, in particular the calculation of the hours, is "absolutely common and covered by the case law".
So whether one could not still talk about a confession and a limitation of the allegations and thus the sentence.
But even after a renewed conversation with their defense lawyers, the defendants stand by them: they do not want to comment.
Now another date must first be found in order to further negotiate the matter.
The only issue at stake in court is the social security damage.
Whether and to what extent the employees of the delivery service also received too little wages has so far played no role - for lack of names and in view of the hardly available documents.
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