Champagne robber escapes: brazen theft in Bendorf!

Champagne robber escapes: brazen theft in Bendorf!

In a brazen incident of crime, a 25-year-old man from Bendorf near Koblenz left a supermarket with a significant amount of stolen goods on Wednesday, October 25, 2025. The perpetrator, whose description includes a stocky build and dark hair, loaded his shopping cart with 28 bottles of champagne and whiskey and escaped without paying. The entire action took place around 5 p.m., and as lokalo.de reports, it was done extremely cleverly.

In order to camouflage his prey, the man had packed the bottles in shopping bags he had carried and covered them with bags of cat litter. The plan seemed to work: he left the store abruptly via an unoccupied checkout. The police, who made this announcement on Saturday, are now continuing to investigate and are evaluating the video material from the supermarket, as also reported by zeit.de.

An increase in shoplifting

The incident in Bendorf is not isolated. Statistics show that shoplifting has increased rapidly since the end of the corona pandemic. In 2023, over 426,000 reports of shoplifting were registered in Germany - the highest figure since 2006. According to Deutschlandfunk, this worrying development is not only due to financial bottlenecks or the boredom of opportunist thieves, but is also caused by inflation and the declining purchasing power of the population.

Retailers spent a total of 1.55 billion euros on theft prevention in 2023. It's no secret that shoplifting drives up prices for consumers. The loss due to theft and other organizational errors had caused an inventory loss of 4.6 billion euros in 2022, which rose to 4.8 billion euros in 2023. This means that goods worth an average of 13 million euros are stolen every day.

The legal consequences

Shoplifting is taken seriously in Germany. A simple offense can result in a fine or even a prison sentence of up to five years. For serious theft, the penalties are even more severe, ranging from three months to ten years. Special regulations apply to young people with educational measures or social hours. These diverse penalties make it clear that retailers and society cannot stand idly by and watch the thieves' activities.

Given this worrying development, it is hoped that advancing technology and innovative theft prevention measures will help stop the rise in these crimes and thereby increase safety for everyone in stores.