When the shoes are stolen, a pair of trainers usually helps you sprint no further than the prison gate. Yet in Europe's calm and comfortable times, many young people feel starved of adrenaline, and for them theft becomes more than a way to get something for nothing. In fact, it is less about the gain than about feeling the edge of life and getting a shot of adrenaline. The thrill is especially sharp when the theft is committed with a knife and the thief is caught. A prison sentence of up to 10 years looming on the horizon makes for an unforgettable experience. This is the kind of story that Bogdan, a Berlin student from Kyiv with an eye for sneakers, got himself into.
Adrenaline Is Worth More Than Money
Bogdan came to our law firm for help in a deeply dejected state. He was facing expulsion from university, a prison sentence and deportation from Germany all at once. Only a short while earlier his life had been easy and full of recognition from his peers — regulars of social media groups that bring together so-called "shoplifters". "Shoplifters", as members of this subculture call themselves, are not kleptomaniacs; they steal for the sake of the items themselves or to resell them later. What matters most to them, however, is not getting caught, finding a way to get the item out unnoticed, and then bragging about the "feat" in one of the relevant closed groups on social media.
Stealing from shops as a pastime is nothing new. There was once a trade of market thief, and with the rise of large retail chains, portraits soon began to appear at shop entrances showing those who were barred from entering — people who had stolen and been caught. Times changed, the technology protecting goods from thieves changed, and so did the techniques of theft. But recently something has also changed within the social group we can call thieves. In the past it was a trade or a mental disorder; today, those who steal are often people whose finances are perfectly healthy. A kind of sport. The law, however, lags behind changing youth trends and still treats such thefts the old-fashioned way — as plain theft, with no championship titles awarded.
The Air Soles Didn't Carry Him Away
One of these aspiring "athletes" was Bogdan. He set off on his exploit with a light, confident stride. Inside, the Galeria at Alexanderplatz shone like the smile of a doorman at one of the most expensive hotels. Bogdan walked into one of the sports shops and indulged himself, sliding his feet with obvious pleasure into one pair of trainers after another. The people who design the insides of sneakers are true wizards in love with every bone of the human foot. Bogdan appreciated the wizardry of several brands' designers and finally settled on a Nike model. It would be wrong to call Bogdan a sports fanatic, but the model was extremely fashionable and almost indecently comfortable.
How does an ordinary shoe buyer behave? You try on one pair, a second, a third in the main sales area. You walk around the shop. You make up your mind. You take the box with the new shoes to the checkout. An ordinary scenario, isn't it? But imagine you plan to try on a pair of shoes, walk through the shop in them and leave without paying. Standing in your way is an electronic magnetic detector. Nowadays all expensive goods are fitted with special magnetic tags. So the question is how to get rid of the tag. Bogdan took the sneakers into the fitting room. There he cut off the labels and set about freeing the shoe from the anti-theft sensor.
As everyone knows, such a sensor is attached with a steel pin. Bogdan sawed away at the steel with his pocket knife for a long time. Had he been better read, the example of the Count of Monte Cristo might have inspired him to work at that pin for twenty years. But Bogdan is not the romantic type. He simply cut through the pull tab at the heel of the sneaker, removed the sensor and walked towards the exit with an athletic stride. At the exit a store detective was already smiling at him. And that smile promised nothing good. Bogdan put his own shoes back on, paid the shop a 50-euro penalty on the spot for the damaged goods (without the heel tab they could no longer be sold) and went home in low spirits. The shoplifter group never got to hear his heroic tale.
A Few Statistics
Every day, goods worth two hundred and fifty thousand euros disappear from Berlin shops. It is not customers who make them disappear but thieves. This figure has remained unchanged for about five years — even though shops keep developing ever more sophisticated security systems and hire detectives to watch suspicious customers. That said, the lion's share of this quarter of a million euros a day is attributable to shop staff. The ratio of thefts by employees to thefts by outsiders coming into the shop is roughly seventy to thirty percent. But even seventy-five thousand euros stolen every day from Berlin shops by outside thieves is an enormous sum. The only consolation is that even more is stolen in Norway and Spain. Or perhaps not …
With a Knife It Gets Expensive — with a Good Defence It Ended Cheaply
Everything has its price, even the pleasure of helping yourself to something for free. This kind of criminal happiness is usually paid for with time behind bars under one provision of the Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch, StGB) or another. § 242 StGB (Diebstahl — theft) provides for a fine or imprisonment of up to five years. If, however, the theft was committed using a weapon, § 244 StGB (Diebstahl mit Waffen — theft with weapons) provides for a "rest" of up to ten years — and this time without the option of a fine. Bogdan was just over twenty at the time. Reaching the age of Christ behind bars was not a prospect that appealed to him. Having prayed and realised that it did not help, he came to our law firm. The lawyers of our firm took on the task of rescuing the young shoplifter.
Our lawyers' first goal was to have the case requalified under a less serious provision. The investigation file pointed to the more serious one: the theft had allegedly been committed using a weapon. The records, however, contained no description of the type of weapon allegedly used. An expert assessment had to be obtained. In Germany, a knife is regarded as a bladed weapon (Hiebwaffe) if its blade is eight centimetres long or more. A second important factor, however, is whether a folding knife has a locking mechanism. Such a lock makes it possible to stab with the knife, and that is precisely what determines whether it is classed as a weapon. Fortunately, Bogdan's knife was just a simple pocket knife without a lock. Consequently, it did not fall under the German Weapons Act (Waffengesetz).
Once this had been established, the lawyers saw a prospect of having the proceedings discontinued without a trial under § 153 StPO on the grounds of minor guilt.
The application submitted to the public prosecutor's office (Staatsanwaltschaft) set out that Bogdan had no criminal history and that the damage caused was not significant. It argued that the offence of "theft with weapons" did not apply at all, since the purpose of that provision is to cover the use of a weapon to overcome resistance while committing an offence. In Bogdan's case, the knife had merely been used to cut through part of the shoe and posed no danger to anyone nearby. Nor did the design of the knife meet the requirements for a bladed weapon under the Weapons Act.
Having examined our arguments, the public prosecutor's office agreed to discontinue the proceedings, but only under § 153a StPO (Einstellung gegen Auflage — discontinuation subject to a condition). For the case to be closed, Bogdan had to pay a donation of two hundred euros to a charitable organisation. The prosecutor's office took this decision because Bogdan's conduct showed what German legal terminology calls kriminelle Energie (criminal energy). Had he simply put the sneakers in his bag and tried to smuggle them out, it would have been a different case. Here, by contrast, there was an element of preparation, a plan. And for Bogdan this was the ideal outcome. With no criminal conviction, neither the continuation of his studies nor the extension of his residence permit was at risk. Our lawyers were glad that the matter was resolved before any trial and that it served Bogdan as a good lesson for the future.
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