The fact that you can get into crime with fruit was shown on Tuesday during a trial at the Vienna Regional Court. Two employees of a Viennese fruit and vegetable wholesaler are said to have embezzled fruit worth at least 62,000 euros within two months and sold it to an acquaintance. The two Kosovars now had to answer before a jury for embezzlement, the buyer for receiving stolen property. Some of the defendants confessed.
The company boss in question got to the bottom of her dishonest employees by hiring a private detective following she discovered that an inexplicable loss of fruit and vegetable stocks was increasing, especially during her managing director’s vacation. The detective lay in wait and documented how the employees, aged 37 and 47, diverted goods from the warehouse on a large scale between March and May 2023 and sold them to a 33-year-old acquaintance, who in turn sold them to the man or woman wife brought.
The younger ex-employee of the wholesaler now admitted that he had obtained an ongoing source of income through criminal activities. The buyer also basically confessed. However, the two disputed the incriminated amount of damage, which the public prosecutor expanded to 112,000 euros during the trial. The two’s defense attorneys, Alexander Philipp and Mirsad Musliu, assured that they would have diverted or purchased at most fruit and vegetables worth 6,000 euros. The older ex-employee (defender: Philipp Winkler) pleaded “not guilty”.
Make up for damage in kind?
“My client confessed to four trips with stolen fruit. There was nothing more,” Musliu told the APA following the hearing. This had to be postponed until the end of February because the company boss might not be heard as a witness. Musliu noted that his client was prepared to make reparation for the damage he had caused. “We are considering compensation for damages in kind,” noted the lawyer.
