Germany: Almost four years in prison for stealing gold shavings

A 50-year-old man was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison on Friday in the southwestern German city of Pforzheim for stealing around 20 kilograms (44.1 pounds) of gold shavings from his workplace.

The man worked in a wedding ring factory in Pforzheim, the German jewelery town. As the precious metal had to be sawn to the right size, valuable chips were always left over. The thief took the shavings to his garden shed, where he melted the gold into bars and later sold them.

The crimes were commited from mid-2019 to the end of 2021, when the man was arrested. He confessed to the 27 cases of theft. According to the prosecutor's office, the damage amounts to around €960,000 ($964,000).

The judge warned the man that he could face a new trial. Originally the indictment included 66 cases (38 kilograms of gold), but 39 cases were separated. In these cases, the man claimed to have received the gold filings from someone and simply passed them on to the middlemen.

The defence had asked for a prison sentence of no more than three years. The defense attorney said the theft was made easy for the defendant. There had already been wastage in the ring factory, however, nothing was done about it by the company.

According to the prosecutor, the money from the sale of stolen shavings flowed into the family home, among other things. The thief installed a new pool and a winter garden. An unusual amount of cash was also found during the search. "He had high six-figure sum at home," the prosecutor said.

Although the safety concepts in the jewelry factories are very efficient, employees succumb to the temptation and smuggle gold shavings out of the production facilities. At the end of March, a man in Regensburg was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison for stealing gold shavings from OSRAM factory.

In this case, the stolen gold weighed at least 68.4 kilograms. The judges estimated its value at around around €1.13 million ($1.13 million). The man had kept about €400,000 ($402,000) for himself. The rest had gone to a middleman who had resold the gold.