Again and again, criminals come to Switzerland from abroad and hope to get fat loot here. They strike especially in the summer.
No wonder: that’s when many people are on vacation. Houses and apartments unguarded. According to the Federal Statistical Office, in July and August 2020 there were 1,300 burglaries and sneak thefts. Significantly more cases than in other months.
Four criminals had a particularly long journey last year. They came all the way from Chile for a burglary. The quartet of untrained young men made a single-family neighborhood on Zurichberg unsafe last Christmas, which is also a popular time for break-ins. The goal: the villa of a professor. But the supposed coup backfired. On Thursday, the gangsters faced the district court of Uster.
Three (20, 31 and 33 years old) of the burglars ended up in front of the Uster District Court on Thursday, the fourth was still a minor at the time of the crime. The youth prosecutor’s office is responsible for him. But he doesn’t seem to have learned anything from the botched burglary. After his arrest, he committed another crime.
“Apparently they just wanted the safe”
The burglary attempt happened like this: The criminal quartet flies from Santiago de Chile to Paris on December 20, 2021. There, the four of them take a few souvenir photos in front of the Eiffel Tower, then they drive to Switzerland in a Renault.
The man at the wheel does not have a valid driver’s license, so he has to answer for that in court. Once in Switzerland, they set up their headquarters in a hotel in a Zurich suburb.
On December 23, the gangsters set off. On the Zürichberg they break into the villa of a Zurich university professor. They use crowbars to heave open the sliding glass door and go straight to the safe.
“The dirty footprints clearly showed that they knew exactly where they wanted to go,” says the villa owner to Blick. And he adds: “They left my valuable watch on the table and didn’t take the money box with cash either. Apparently they just wanted the safe.”
Suddenly the alarm system went off
The quartet drags the heavy safe out of the house to the edge of the forest. Here they are trying to open it. Without success. You don’t have the right tool. So they leave the heavy part near their getaway car for now. And break into the next house, according to the professor’s neighbors.
But the alarm system goes off there, and attentive neighbors see the Chileans’ flashlights. So the locals called the police.
A neighbor remembers: “The officials were here in a flash with a huge contingent. They caught at least part of the gang right away in the forest, and then arrested the rest in the hotel.”
Over 200 days of preventive detention
At the trial, the men were meek. “Was that a good idea, trying to get money like that?” the judge asked. no way! The trip to Switzerland was not worthwhile for the criminals. They had to spend more than 200 days in preventive detention. And after the trial it became clear: you have to leave the country. The men were expelled from the country for eight and ten years. In addition, conditional prison sentences of between 14 and 24 months.
The eldest of the gang received the harshest punishment. Thanks to DNA traces, two other crimes could be proven. In 2017 he broke into a house in a Geneva suburb and stole 50,000 francs.
In 2019 he broke into a house in Tagelswangen ZH and stole items worth 5400 francs. But after the last burglar tour on Christmas 2021 it was over! They had already booked tickets to return to Chile in vain. The quartet spent New Year’s Eve behind bars in solitary confinement.