Dramatic theft in Paderborn: Four Kasselers fly up!

Dramatic theft in Paderborn: Four Kasselers fly up!

On January 30, 2025, four people from Kassel were caught in Paderborn during theft in a supermarket. The incident occurred around 11:20 a.m. in a discounter on Dessauer Straße. Witnesses reported that the suspects entered the supermarket with empty backpacks and unnoticed in discounter bags to bring back the empty backpacks. This process has been repeated several times, which caused the attention of an attentive witness.

The witness informed the police who immediately took measures. The suspects fled towards the city center by car, but were quickly discovered in a parking lot of another discounter on Bahnhofstrasse. There the police secured the car and found a 19-year-old woman with a toddler. Two men and another woman were seen with large backpacks when leaving the discounter.

Details about the arrested

When searching the backpacks, the police discovered numerous packages of coffee that had previously been stolen from the discounter. In the trunk of the vehicle, the officials also found other stolen goods. It became known that the four people, a 21-year-old man, a 42-year-old man, a 40-year-old woman and 19-year-old woman, are all Romanian citizens from Kassel. An investigation was initiated against them for commercial band theft.

The secured prey was returned to the discounter. Such incidents are in a larger context, since the number of shoplifting steels in Germany in 2022 rose suddenly. Food practice reported that the retail trade through theft last year suffered losses of around 3.7 billion euros, which represents an increase of 15 percent compared to 2021.

background and trends

Experts from the EHI trade research institute express fears that rising prices could lead to increased theft readiness. Ehi expert Frank Horst explained that higher prices make theft more attractive. An analysis also showed that professional thieves gangs, which often act with a sophisticated division of labor and “shopping lists”, are a growing threat. Such gangs typically steal were worth 1,000 to 2,000 euros or more.

In 2022, the number of charging theft displayed increased by 34.3 percent to almost 345,000 cases, which is 5.8 percent above the level before corona pandemic. While the number of unreported cases is considerable, the increasing tendency towards commercial thefts shows that this topic also remains important for the officials in Paderborn.

The arrest of the four people in Paderborn is therefore not only an isolated case, but part of a larger phenomenon of the increasing shoplifting in Germany, which present retail before immense challenges.