crime
Poland: Gang of thieves clears out truck at full speed
Police in Poland have arrested three men who have been cleaning out trucks while they were driving for years. photo
© Doris Heimann/dpa
It sounds like a thievery operation from a movie: three men have been emptying trucks at full speed for years. Now the unusual procedure has been exposed.
The on-board camera on one of the affected trucks captured what the thieves did. In the dark, they approached a truck driving on the highway in a fast car. The driver turned off his low beams and then drove as close as possible to the rear of the semi-trailer so as not to come into the truck driver’s field of vision.
“In the footage you can see one of the men getting out of the inside of the car through an open window and then climbing onto the hood. As the car approaches the truck, the perpetrator tears open the securing of the tarpaulin and climbs into the trailer,” says the police statement. The perpetrator later jumped from the trailer back onto the hood of the car before getting inside the car through the open window.
Police arrest gang of thieves
Because of the unusual procedure, the truck drivers often only noticed the theft at their destination. The method was discovered when a long-distance driver on the S8 motorway east of Breslau (Wroclaw) found the behavior of a car suspicious and called the police.
The occupants of the vehicle were arrested and their homes were searched. The three men from Ukraine are now in custody. The public prosecutor’s office is investigating her for membership in a criminal organization and attempted burglary. If convicted, they face up to ten years in prison.