Criminal career

Window driller now confessed after nine years

Symbolic image

(Bild: P. Huber)

It was a wild criminal "career" that a now 41-year-old has had over the past few years. It began in July 2015, when the window driller, who has now been caught, committed a series of burglaries in Upper Austria and Lower Austria. The confessed man is now in Wels prison.

July 2015: In Upper Austria and Lower Austria, there was a series of burglaries in residential buildings using the following method: the perpetrator drilled open wooden windows during the night and broke in while the residents were asleep. According to the police, the serial criminal used this method to break into 45 homes in the districts of Vöcklabruck, Wels-Land, Linz-Land, Linz and Korneuburg in just a few months. In September 2015, the series of burglaries came to an abrupt end. For the time being.

Shoes as a hot lead
In July 2016, April and May 2018, the window driller used the same method to break into homes in Lower Austria. In September 2018, the now 41-year-old Albanian committed six more burglaries in Linz and the surrounding area. One of them was his undoing.

During one of the break-ins, he was caught by a resident who tried to detain the culprit. He managed to break free, but had to leave his shoes behind, which he had taken off outside the house. Thanks to these traces, the unknown perpetrator was later tracked down in France. The 41-year-old was arrested there on May 8, 2021.

Extradited to Austria
The window driller spent some time in prison in France for crimes he had committed there. This March, the serial burglar was finally extradited to Austria.

In Austria, the 41-year-old confessed to all the burglaries, as the police have now announced. However, with the exception of the incident with the lost shoes, he could no longer remember any details. The accused is now in prison in Wels. Without a drill for the windows.