During a Europol-supported action day conducted by Bulgarian and German law enforcement in mid-October, officers recovered stolen car parts worth several millions of euros. Led by the Bulgarian police in a warehouse near Sofia, the raid was the result of an investigation initiated when a logistics company in Wallersdorf, Bavaria (Bayern) was broken into in June 2024. The burglars had stolen large amounts of parts for vehicles produced by a German car manufacturer. The perpetrators had loaded the parts on lorries using forklifts, before transporting them abroad.
German investigators had an initial breakthrough with the arrest and detention of two Romanian nationals following a series of break-ins in bakeries in Wallersdorf. Over the course of the investigation conducted by the Landshut Criminal Investigation Department, evidence emerged that one of the suspects, with the help of one other accomplice, was involved in the break-in at the Wallersdorf logistics company. The investigation also yielded concrete information on the whereabouts of the stolen vehicle parts in Bulgaria, upon which the Landshut investigators contacted Europol.
Europol was responsible for facilitating the information exchange between German and Bulgarian law enforcement, and arranged a meeting to prepare the action day. In addition to deploying a specialist to Bulgaria to perform cross checks on the spot, Europol also financed the deployment of German law enforcement officers. Eurojust facilitated the judicial cooperation between the involved authorities. On 15 October 2024, officers from the Landshut Criminal Investigation Department, a representative of the Landshut Public Prosecutor’s Office and a Europol specialist participated in the raid conducted by the Bulgarian authorities, where almost all of the stolen car parts were recovered.
