Parking inspector and wife arrested for stealing meter worth €1m

A parking inspector and his wife have been arrested on suspicion of embezzling more than €1 million (£878,000) from parking meters in a German town.

The unnamed municipal employee is believed to have removed coins from Kempten’s parking meters “on multiple occasions” and deposited them into a bank account accessible to his wife, local police said in a statement.

A money laundering report from a credit agency alerted investigators to the alleged theft. The parking inspector was charged with 720 counts of theft, while his wife faced 720 counts of aiding and abetting theft.

Kempten mayor Thomas Kitchler said he was “shocked and dismayed” by the accusations.

In October, the Kempten prosecutor’s office learned that cash had been deposited multiple times into multiple bank accounts, German news agency DPA reported.

Police subsequently searched the premises in the early hours of November 24, and a 40-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman were arrested on the same day.

They are now being held in separate detention facilities.

It’s unclear how long it will take the couple to come up with the money.

In response to the accusations, Kishler announced the appointment of a committee to “review past work processes, identify potential weaknesses and remediate them reliably in the future.”

Kitchler noted that the couple’s names cannot be released at this time due to the ongoing investigation and privacy concerns.

“I naturally support the prosecutor’s office and the police in conducting a thorough investigation of the allegations,” Kishler said in a written statement.

“The presumption of innocence applies until the conclusion of the proceedings,” he added.

Kempten is one of the oldest settlements in Germany. It is located in the south of the country, nestled under the Allgäu Mountains, and has about 70,000 inhabitants.