Reinickendorf: Police catch suspected cable thieves on railway site
Plainclothes officers watched three men overnight who allegedly cut around 200 meters of cable on a railway site. Federal police are investigating aggravated theft.
Symbolic image · Photo: VynedJ / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Officers from the Berlin police and the federal police have provisionally arrested three suspected cable thieves in Reinickendorf. Plainclothes officers observed the men at around 3:30 a.m. in the night to Thursday on a Deutsche Bahn site, where they allegedly cut and carried away cables. Police stopped them as they tried to leave in two vehicles.
According to the federal police, around 200 meters of cable, both vehicles, a cable cutter, two smartphones, a USB stick and work gloves were seized. The license plates on one car had been reported stolen, and the vehicle identification numbers had been tampered with. During a court-ordered search of one of the men's homes, investigators found a bicycle and an e-scooter, both suspected to be stolen, as well as cable remnants.
The federal police are investigating the men, aged 27, 29 and 50, for aggravated theft. They were to be brought before a custody judge on Friday, with authorities seeking pretrial detention warrants. The presumption of innocence applies until any conviction.