A 53-year-old man who extorted several hundred thousand euros from the drugstore chain dm is to be jailed for seven years. The regional court in Karlsruhe sentenced him, among other things, to extortion and causing an explosive device explosion. The man also has to pay half a million euros to the company.
In September 2019, the German, who was most recently living in Constance and Switzerland, extorted the equivalent of around half a million euros from the drugstore chain. In order to emphasize his claim, the 53-year-old detonated an explosive device in a dm branch in Freiburg. There was damage of 20,000 euros, but no one was injured.
Out of concern for its customers and employees – dm has around 4,000 branches in 14 countries across Europe – the drugstore company paid around 500,000 euros in Bitcoin. After the explosion in the branch, the blackmailer threatened in a letter of confession that “this warning shot got off more than lightly”.
Financial problems are said to have been behind the extortion. After repeated burnout, he no longer worked as a nurse and wanted to secure an income until retirement, the man said. He had confessed to the crime at the beginning of the trial.
The public prosecutor’s office had requested a prison sentence of nine years. The defense attorney had pleaded for a “mild sentence” without naming a specific penalty. The verdict is not yet legally binding.