The Munich criminal police have solved a series of burglaries from last year and identified a six-member gang as suspects. The files on the “Pflasterstein” case are now available to the Munich I public prosecutor’s office for final processing. The suspects, aged between 18 and 26, are accused of 26 burglaries in Munich alone, mainly in restaurants, but also kiosks and driving schools. The material damage caused (a total of 30,000 euros) was higher than the total value of the loot (around 25,000 euros). In addition to the Munich crimes, there are other crimes that they committed within the jurisdiction of the Upper Bavaria North Police Headquarters: In Karlsfeld they broke into the same gas station about three times.
The two main suspects, a 21-year-old and an 18-year-old from Munich, were caught red-handed in May 2023 when they were about to break into a Greek tavern. Because they had previously increased the frequency of their forays, their preferred objects were under special observation. After a while in custody, the men largely admitted the crimes they were accused of, as well as another half dozen that could not have been assigned to them based on the evidence, as Chief Detective Thomas Haas reported on Thursday.
As the responsible investigator further explained, the gang was tracked down because there had been a striking number of cases following the same pattern at the beginning of 2023: the suspects, acting in changing lineups, had broken the windows of entrance doors at night, and always with them a heavy paving stone – hence the name of the process. The perpetrators would have drowned out the clanging noises of the shattering glass with the squealing tires of a driving car.
After the gang initially hit kiosks in Sendling, they soon switched to restaurants and driving schools throughout the city. Apparently further expansion was planned: When the two main suspects were arrested, a list of around two dozen objects in Augsburg was found in their car, said Haas.
During their investigation, the officers were helped by the fact that a witness had noted down the license plate number of a suspicious car. This, a small Fiat, was noticed again a little later in a fuel fraud in Waldkraiburg. The suspects could then be seen unmasked in the recordings from the video cameras installed there. Due to the comparison with camera recordings from other affected objects, the evaluation of cell phone data and DNA traces found on the paving stones, the six suspects, some of whom were already known to the police, five from Munich and one from Regensburg, were finally identified. It also turned out that the two main suspects, the owners of the suspicious Fiat, do not have a driver’s license.