after thefts
Amazon employee sentenced to prison
Two Amazon employees have been sentenced to prison after thefts. photo
© Moritz Frankenberg/dpa
Two employees of retail giant Amazon took advantage of their position to steal expensive electrical goods from packages. One of them now has to go to prison, his colleague gets off with probation.
A 27-year-old man was given one year and nine months probation for aggravated gang theft, a court spokesman said on Tuesday. A 40-year-old has to go to prison for two years and ten months. He was also convicted of drug offenses after cocaine was discovered in his possession during a home search. The two defendants made confessions. The parties involved in the proceedings had also agreed on a penalty range in order to shorten the proceedings. The verdict had already been announced on Monday.
The defendants were employed at an Amazon distribution center in Gersthofen near Augsburg at the time of the crime. According to the indictment, because of their position in the company, they were able to determine which packages contained high-value goods such as smartphones. They are then said to have removed the electronic items from the shipments, repackaged them and sent them on to a friend. The 43-year-old woman was also originally charged as part of the gang. However, the proceedings against her were dropped against a fine of 1,750 euros. “The background to the dismissal was the defendant’s small and difficult to prove contribution to the crime,” said the court spokesman.
During the investigation, goods such as smartphones and computers worth more than 30,000 euros were seized. In addition, more than 150,000 euros in cash were discovered in the apartments of the three defendants. The money is now being confiscated by the state because it probably comes from illegal transactions.