As of: January 31, 2024, 6:41 p.m
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Three suspected members of a gang of vending machine busters (l., 2nd from left and r.) are in court with their lawyers at the start of the trial (January 22, 2024) in Düsseldorf.
© Martin Höke/dpa/archive image
ATMs are blown up almost every day in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Often the perpetrators can escape.
But sometimes you will be put on trial.
Düsseldorf - The Düsseldorf Regional Court sentenced three members of a gang of ATM busters to prison terms of between four and ten and a half years on Wednesday.
According to the public prosecutor's office, the three men belonged to an international gang that was active in Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg.
The Romanians, aged 34, 43 and 47, had confessed in the trial to having blown up ATMs, cracked safes in supermarkets and petrol stations and stolen cars in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate.
The Düsseldorf criminal chamber imposed ten years and six months in prison on the 47-year-old main defendant, who had multiple previous convictions.
The 34-year-old defendant has to go to prison for four years and nine months, and the 43-year-old co-defendant has to go to prison for four years and three months.
The defendants were convicted of preparing and causing an explosive explosion, violating the Explosives Act and particularly serious theft.
The court therefore fell only slightly short of the prosecutor's sentencing demands.
Under the leadership of the oldest defendant, the members of the gang are said to have blown up ATMs in varying degrees from May 2020 to March 2023.
The crimes were committed in Sinzig, Monschau, Niederkrüchten, Neuss, Mönchengladbach and Hamm, among others.
The gang is said to have stolen more than 450,000 euros.
The defendants used stolen cars as getaway vehicles.
In addition, members of the gang are said to have used stolen trucks to rip safes out of their anchorages in supermarkets and gas stations and break into them elsewhere.
A house in Niederkassel near Troisdorf is said to have served as shelter.
The suspected gang leader was arrested there in a raid on March 2, 2023.
The investigators discovered his trail through speed camera photos.
The 47-year-old had been driving too fast several times while behind the wheel of the stolen getaway vehicles.
In an apartment in Aachen, investigators found explosives under the bed of the 34-year-old co-defendant, which had also been used in the ATM blasts.
The judgments are not yet final.
dpa