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Luxury cars driven from Barcelona to Denmark in fraud and theft case

Ritzau/The Local
Ritzau/The Local - [email protected]
Luxury cars driven from Barcelona to Denmark in fraud and theft case
Photo: volhanna/Depositphotos"

Five men who hired luxury rental cars in Barcelona and Paris and drove them to Denmark are to go on trial in Copenhagen, accused of fraud and theft.

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The group’s trip across Europe in the luxury vehicles included stops at a McDonald’s restaurant in Paris and overnight stays at Berlin’s Grand Hyatt Hotel and the Waldorf Astoria in Amsterdam, reports news agency Ritzau.

Bills for food, fuel and hotel stays – totalling up to half a million kroner (67,000 euros) were paid for with manipulated credit cards from Swedish corporate bank SEB, according to prosecution authorities in the case.

The primary aim of the trip was to make off with expensive cars from rental companies in Barcelona, Berlin and Paris, the prosecution claims.

Four cars, with a total value of six million kroner (800,000), were driven away from the Europcar, Hertz and Sixt companies, according to the charge sheet in the case.

Three of the cars – an Audi Q7, a Maserati and Range Rover – were discovered by police in a parking lot in Hedehusene, a suburban town near Copenhagen, on November 28th last year.

The fourth, and most expensive, car – a BMW X6M worth 2.3 million kroner (310,000 euros) – was also found in Denmark, according to the prosecution.

The rental companies were victims of serious fraud, according to the charges, since the men never had any intention of returning the cars.

The five men are between the ages of 20 and 42, and four of them are currently held in custody.

One of the men is also accused of allowing others to use his identity documents. He ordered an iconic Danish design ‘Egg’ chair – worth 70,000 kroner (9,400 euros) from a furniture company in the town of Søborg before attempting to pay with a stolen credit card, according to the report.

He is also accused to attempting to secure a 200,000 kroner loan using a false wage slip.

All five men deny the charges. Court proceedings begin at Copenhagen City Court Monday and a verdict is expected in mid November.  

READ ALSO: Supermarket thieves escape Danish police after cross-country chase

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