Actually, it’s just a few ticks in the right places, which shouldn’t pose a real problem with a halfway conscientious preparation. Nevertheless, there is always a bit of nervousness about the written driver’s license test. Instead, a 38-year-old from Munich felt it in a completely different place. Because he is said to have commissioned a man about two years ago to take the driver’s license test for him in Ebersberg for money, he now had to answer to the local district court for the misuse of identity papers.
According to the public prosecutor’s office, the accused handed this over to the “professional” examinee, who filled out the questionnaire under a false identity and thus swindled the 38-year-old’s driver’s license. At least that was the plan if the police hadn’t been on the trail of the swindlers and would have caught the wrong examinee on the spot. This is what a police officer from Munich reported in court, who had also snuck into the TÜV office that day, where the tests were taking place, undetected. “We received a notification that the wrong test was to be taken there,” said the 42-year-old official.
The police officers know similar cases from Munich, where the scam is common
His statement was also the only one that Judge Vera Hörauf could rely on during the hearing, because the accused did not want to comment on the allegations made by the public prosecutor. He didn’t have to at first, because the police officers had a good overview of the course of the attempted swindle. According to the court official, three men had first met in a car parked nearby, two of them then went to the TÜV office to take the test there. They wanted to organize a total of three driver’s licenses in this way on the day. It is possible that the deception would not have been noticed at all if one of the police men had not already known of similar cases in the state capital.
When he recognized the officer after the check, he initially wanted to flee – but he didn’t get very far. The officers were able to catch the man a little later in Ebersberg and found the accused’s identification papers and proof of the passed exam in the fraudster’s underpants. “I’ve arrested the man several times in Munich,” said the police officer in court. The phenomenon of wrong tests is widespread there, he alone has already worked on up to 250 such cases. “And I don’t even want to know how high the number of unreported cases is,” said the 42-year-old. Most of the customers come from the Arab world and buy the exam because of their lack of German language skills. The prices for the stolen driver’s license are sometimes quite high, up to 2500 euros would be paid to the scammer.
The defense attorney wants to hear more witnesses, which is why the process is contracted
But the Ebersberger swindler also paid dearly for his crime. He had to answer before the district court at the beginning of May and was sentenced to nine months imprisonment on probation. However, the man did not show up at the trial against his alleged client at the time, although he was summoned to appear in court, as was the TÜV inspector. Judge Hörauf therefore imposed a fine of 150 euros on both men.
Despite their unexcused absence, the two of them will not be able to avoid their testimony, because the defendant’s defense attorney requested that the trial be adjourned so that all witnesses could be heard. He argued that the police officers found the fraudster on site, but there was no sign of his client far and wide. Judge Hörauf countered that there was no plausible reason why one of the men had carried the accused’s documents around in his underpants. However, she was not able to pronounce a verdict that day, and the hearing is scheduled to continue at the beginning of November.