Parking Inspector and Spouse Arrested in €1m Meter Theft Case
One meter attendant and his wife have been arrested on allegations of misappropriating more than €1m from the parking meters of a modest German town.
The unnamed municipal employee is thought to have removed cash from street meters in the town on multiple occasions and placed them in financial accounts that his spouse had control over, local police said in a release.
A financial crime report by a bank alerted investigators to the alleged theft. The parking inspector has been accused with 720 counts of theft, while his wife is charged with 720 counts of assisting in the crime.
Kempten Head Thomas Kiechle said he was shocked and dismayed by the allegations.
In the fall, the Kempten legal authorities were informed that cash was frequently being deposited into multiple accounts, as reported by reports.
Officers then searched office premises in the morning of 24 November, the same day that a man in his forties and a woman in her late thirties were arrested.
They are now being held in separate jails.
It is uncertain how much time it might have required the pair to accumulate the amount.
In reaction to the allegations, Kiechle declared the appointment of a committee to examine past procedures, uncover possible weaknesses, and effectively remedy them for the coming years.
He added that the names of the couple could not currently be released due to the active probe and privacy concerns.
In a official comment, Kiechle said: "I certainly back the legal authorities and the police in their detailed inquiry of the claims."
"Until the case are concluded, the innocent until proven guilty stands," he continued.
The town is among the oldest towns in the country. Located in the southern region, it lies under the slopes of the Allgäu region and has around seventy thousand residents.
