200,000 euros damage

Police arrest Romanian burglary gang

Part of the Romanians' loot(Bild: LPD Wien)

A Romanian gang of burglars was up to mischief in Vienna and Lower Austria for months this year. In the course of their tours, they caused a total loss of around 200,000 euros. Now the handcuffs have clicked.

The investigation was set in motion after suspicious observations made by a woman out for a walk in Vienna-Donaustadt at the end of March. The woman saw a man throwing a cut-open safe into an oxbow lake of the Danube. The eyewitness made a note of the license plate number of the vehicle that the suspect got into a short time later and alerted the police.

22 burglaries in detached houses solved
It soon became clear to the officers that this was not just a case of unauthorized waste dumping, but that there was more to it. In the course of intensive investigations, three Romanian nationals (aged 29, 31 and 41) were tracked down and 22 burglaries in single-family homes were proven. According to the police, however, the number of unreported cases could be much higher.

"The suspects' approach was to smash or break open windows to get into the houses. They then stole mainly safes, jewelry and cash," according to the police. Two perpetrators were caught in the act and arrested at the end of May. The third in the group was caught in his home country and subsequently extradited to Austria. They are all in custody.