(new: details)

HAMBURG (dpa-AFX) - They are alleged to have stolen tons of silver-bearing material and caused millions in damage to the Hamburg copper producer Aurubis. Now the alleged perpetrators will have to stand trial. The Hamburg public prosecutor's office has charged five suspects with aggravated gang theft or commercial gang theft, as the authorities announced on Thursday. Another man is facing charges of aiding and abetting aggravated gang theft.

According to the public prosecutor's office, the main trial at Hamburg District Court is scheduled to begin on December 12. The case is presumably unrelated to the fraud that became known at the end of August, which cost Aurubis hundreds of millions of euros in damages.

Loot worth eleven million euros

According to the indictment, the accused allegedly stole around five tons of intermediate and by-products containing precious metals with a total value of around eleven million euros from the company premises in the Veddel district and sold them on to previously unknown customers. The prosecution did not name the company. However, a spokesperson for the company confirmed in response to a dpa inquiry that the thefts were at the company's premises.

According to the indictment, the thefts involved what are known as crude silver filings. "Raw silver residues are produced in the course of metal recycling and treatment processes," the statement reads. "At least some of the loot is said to have been sent to metal processing companies in Turkey for analysis and further use. The suspects, aged between 33 and 50, used crypto cell phones for internal communication."

Searches in five federal states

This case came to light in mid-June. At that time, the public prosecutor's office had more than 30 properties in five federal states searched. Six men were arrested in the process. The investigations were directed against twelve identified suspects and others who were not yet known. At the time, there was talk of suspects aged between 28 and 60 as well as other as yet unknown accomplices. "The public prosecutor's office and the Hamburg police are investigating individual active and former employees of Aurubis or employees of external companies who are or were working on the Aurubis site," Aurubis said at the time.

In June, the officers confiscated ten vehicles, 20 high-quality watches, over 200,000 euros in cash, several firearms and ammunition, as well as some of the stolen goods, in addition to documents and storage media. The public prosecutor's office obtained arrest warrants with a total value of over 20 million euros. An arrest warrant is a court-authorized seizure of property. The investigations were carried out by the Specialist Investigation Unit for Combating Organized Crime at the Hamburg State Office of Criminal Investigation.

Even greater damage in another case

Even greater damage was caused by fraud in a case at Aurubis that came to light at the end of August. However, this case is not the subject of the indictment that has now been issued. The fraud was discovered during regular checks of the metal stock. There were considerable deviations from the target stock as well as deviations in special samples of certain recycling deliveries.

Aurubis suspects that samples of recycling scrap were manipulated so that the value of deliveries was overstated on the basis of the samples. According to earlier statements by its CEO Roland Harings, the company assumes "with a very high degree of probability" that Aurubis employees were involved.

An extraordinary inventory revealed that the shortfall in precious metals had a negative impact of 185 million euros on the operating result before taxes for fiscal year 2022/23, as Aurubis announced in mid-September. Due to the consequences, Aurubis recently had to postpone the presentation of its financial figures for 2022/23 (end of September), which had been scheduled for December 6, by two weeks./kf/DP/ngu