The court process lasts three days: Five Lucerne car dealers sold stolen luxury cars from Italy
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Loading... - Ryan Taylor
- 05 Sep 2022
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Dealing in stolen goods, money laundering, fraud and mismanagement: These are some of the crimes for which five men between the ages of 41 and 60 have to answer in a 3-day trial before the Lucerne Criminal Court.
All five were in the auto dealership industry. They resold cars stolen in Italy in Switzerland. These are luxury brands such as Mercedes, Audi Q7, BMW X6 or Porsche. Several of the accused are also accused of financially undermining three companies and thus causing their bankruptcy. The public prosecutor is asking for penalties of between 15 months and five years.
They could count on accomplices in Italy
The shenanigans were revealed on the basis of the customs papers that were found. A total of eleven vehicles from Italy were delivered to Switzerland via an unknown car dealer named "Antonio" and declared in Lucerne. Antonio, who is not known in detail, usually appeared in the company of other unknown people. The theft reports in Italy showed that the vehicles were stolen between April 2007 and December 2008. The five accused could count on accomplices in Italy, who took the cars away from the owners, sometimes at gunpoint.
The identification numbers of individual luxury vehicles were forged, as were sales agreements, title deeds, service books and vehicle registration cards. The fences wanted to disguise the origin of the vehicles, as the indictment shows.
The purchase prices were paid in cash and only one key was supplied with most of the eleven vehicles. The five accused cooperated together, exchanged prices and trade details with each other - it can therefore be assumed that all of the accused were complicit. The prosecution writes of a "well-developed and functioning team".
The indictment is 300 pages long
The men come from Switzerland, Spain, Portugal and Turkey. Today they all live in Central Switzerland. The five charges are formulated on almost 300 pages. It shows their involvement in the individual crimes with varying degrees of intensity.
In addition to receiving stolen goods and money laundering, the accused faces a five-year prison sentence, as well as the criminal offenses of fraud, forgery, unfair business dealings, mismanagement and embezzlement. In addition, the state is claiming compensation for the amount of the crime (around CHF 1.4 million). Read More…
