As of: March 25, 2024, 6:05 a.m
By: Anna Liebelt, Cornelia Schramm
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Music in the children's room: The figure stands on the Tonie box, it flashes green and the radio play begins.
© imago
Thefts of Tonie figures are increasing in Bavaria.
The perpetrators also stole from bookstores in the region on a large scale.
A gang has now been caught.
Munich – For Sophie von Lenthe it is a normal working day in February.
There's a lot going on in her bookstore in Ebenhausen in the Munich district.
And so she and her employees don't notice that an unknown person sneaks into the back of the store.
He's after the Tonie figures, with a few quick moves he clears the entire shelf and disappears.
A Tonie figure like this is wrapped in foil and is only a few centimeters tall.
If you want to, you can stuff a lot of them into your pocket at once - and steal a considerable amount of material value.
A figure costs ten to 20 euros.
“I didn’t even notice that something had been stolen, it happened so quickly,” says von Lenthe today.
The thief was successful with this tactic in two of their branches; dozens of Tonies also disappeared that day in the Isartal bookstore in Pullach.
“That’s just bold,” says von Lenthe.
Ebenhausen and Pullach are not isolated cases either.
The Tonie thieves were also successful several times in the branches of bookseller Johannes Rupprecht.
Whether in Erding, Freising, Kaufbeuren, Grünwald or Starnberg: 17 of its 50 branches fell victim to the robbers.
Cameras were able to record the perpetrators on their foray.
Thieves hot for Tonies: Video shows how targeted a gang was
“We have a lot of footage that shows how professionally the thieves acted,” says Rupprecht.
One stood at the entrance, another at a corner with grease, the third cleared the shelves.
“In the videos you can see how they stuff the figures into the inside pockets of their thick jackets,” says Rupprecht.
“So they stole a lot of figures from us.” The thieves stole 135 figures in one fell swoop – and that was just from one branch.
Then within a few hours they hit the other branches too.
The damage amounts to well over 20,000 euros.
What are Tonies?
In the children's room, the
Tonie characters
have now replaced the radio play cassette.
The colorful figures are
data carriers
on which stories and songs are stored.
Handling is child's play.
You simply place the funny little manschgerl on the corresponding
Tonie box
and the radio play starts.
This no longer creates
a mess of tapes like you used to have to fumble out of the
cassette recorder .
There is a large selection of Tonies in stores.
The manufacturer lists over 400 figures on its website, and there are also special Tonies, for example with factual themes for older children.
(sco)
All over southern Germany, thieves have recently been targeting the little people more and more often - whether as individual perpetrators or organized gangs.
Recently, however, several perpetrators were arrested.
The Kempten federal police pulled off a major coup.
She arrested three men during a check on the A9.
The gang from Leipzig is said to have specialized in stealing radio play characters.
She is said to have stolen tons of Tonies in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg.
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Shortly afterwards, the federal police in Lindau arrested another gang member.
There were already arrest warrants against the 20-year-old from the Ingolstadt and Magdeburg public prosecutors.
He is said to have stolen, among other things, 3,357 Tonies between November 2022 and January 2024.
Its value: 71,000 euros.
The quartet is now in custody for more than 60 cases of commercial and gang-related theft.
The police estimate the total value of the loot to be at least 85,000 euros.
Some of the stolen Tonies have now been recovered, the police said.
Tonies: Small figures, considerable value - thieves resell them online
A week ago on Saturday, the Ingolstadt police were also alerted about stolen Tonies.
A 29-year-old had stuffed her eleven-year-old child's backpack with it and then sent it out of the store past the checkout.
She was caught with stolen goods worth 1000 euros.
The officers also searched her car and found additional Tonies worth 3,500 euros.
The woman is said to have sold the Tonies online.
The fear of Tonies thieves is now causing retailers to take more security measures.
In some Rossmann branches, the Tonies are now in display cases that are only opened upon request.
Johannes Rupprecht would also like to implement a solution like this in his branches: “We are now taking precautions and raising awareness among our employees.”
Tonies manufacturer develops new type of theft protection
The manufacturer from Düsseldorf is also reacting: Tonies is now providing a hook lock that only store staff can open.
“Unfortunately, we have to say that this deters opportunist thieves, but not professional gangs of thieves,” said a spokesman.
“We are examining further ideas to improve theft protection.
They range from customized packaging to activation codes that are only accessible after payment at the checkout.”
But bookseller Sophie von Lenthe is already drawing the consequences.
She has taken the Tonies out of the range.
“I won’t take them in anymore either,” she says.
The damage that the thieves have caused in their branches is too great.