Four women, members of a cleaning crew, were sentenced by the Single-Member Criminal Appeal Court of Thessaloniki, to 5 years in prison (each), for systematically stealing goods, such as clothes, linens, bijoux, with a total value of more than 100,000 euros, from four branded stores of Tsimiski street, in Thessaloniki.

The case came to light at the end of December 2021, when the cleaners, finishing their shift, were arrested in possession of bags of stolen goods. They themselves had committed – at least since September of the same year – successive thefts, without being noticed.

The tangle of the case began to unravel, when TheThe store managers (belonging to the same Group) began to notice significant shortages of goods, to an extent that was not justified by the volume of sales. Due to the large extent of the thefts, the version that these thefts were due to customers or employees was ruled out, which was not confirmed by the security cameras either. Suspicions turned to the cleaners and were confirmed when they were caught with the stolen goods on them.

They were taking out the anti-theft devices

According to the case file, the defendants (originally from Georgia and Armenia) acted during the night work them, while the shops were closed. They made sure to remove them with scissors anti-theft mechanisms who possessed the goods.

“Some mechanisms were found thrown in the shafts of the elevators” testified witnesses – employees of the stores, noting that thefts were also recorded from the warehouses. According to the same case file, the defendants were leaving their work in a vehicle belonging to the cleaning company, however, the investigation did not establish the involvement of other persons.

In a search that followed in the house and on the roof of one of the defendants (the only one who was remanded in custody), goods worth almost 30,000 euros were found, the theft of which she accepted. In their apologies, her co-accused only admitted to stealing the goods found during their arrest.

According to the verdict of the Court, the defendants joined together to commit distinguished thefts. All of them were granted the reduced term of common-law life and they were released with restrictive conditions in view of the appellate trial.

The district attorney expressed the assessment that the stolen items “were channeled somewhere, resold somewhere”.