The Atrio wine thief denies the theft of a 5,250-euro bottle of whiskey in Madrid

He has been tried this Tuesday for the theft of a bottle of whiskey in 2019 in a gourmet store in the Salamanca district The defendant has denied the facts and the trial has been seen for sentencing CáceresThe Criminal Court number 8 of Madrid has hosted the oral trial for this theft, committed in a place that he used to frequent. But this alleged white-collar thief, Constantin Gabriel Dumitru, has “flatly” denied his authorship. During his speech, he only answered the questions of his defense, and explained that he was a “regular customer” of this gourmet store, where he bought regularly and to which he frequently went as he was about a five-minute walk from his residence. at that time. Based on the witnesses and the images of the security cameras recorded on the day of the theft, the Prosecutor’s Office asks for 18 months in prison and compensation, both for the establishment and the insurer of the bottle, which continues unaccounted for, as well as the 45 bottles of wine valued at 1.6 million euros that disappeared from the Atrio restaurant in 2021. Seen for sentence “White and in a bottle is not always milk.” This is how he has summarized the defendant’s defense to defend his free acquittal on the basis that there is no direct or indirect evidence or even the accumulation of multiple indications about his authorship or about the fact of the theft itself. Thus, he has questioned that there is no invoice proving that the bottle of whiskey was in the store and was stolen or what content that bottle had and its value. The theft of the bottle of whiskey occurred on May 7, 2019 in a store located on Ortega y Gasset street and the arrest of the accused took place in August of that same year at the exit of the establishment, accompanied by his daughter, after an employee recognized him in the images of the security cameras. At the oral hearing, the video of the day on which the theft allegedly took place at the Lavinia store was viewed and in which the accused admitted having been in the store buying some bottles of wine. In the images you can see how he accesses the store’s cellar reserved for high-cost drinks, together with a local employee, thanks to whom he was able to access this space that is entered by fingerprint. Likewise, it can be seen as a person slightly moves the surveillance camera at a given moment and shortly after the arm of a person who appears in the image is seen and picks up a bottle. Shortly after, the accused and the employee reappear in the image as normal and leave the establishment. “Before and after there are no more people,” explained the person in charge of the premises. As he has indicated in his statement as a witness, that same day they realized that the bottle was not in his place and 48 hours later, after viewing the security cameras, they filed the corresponding complaint. “He took himself out of his space to take some photos. He shouldn’t have been there,” explained the witness. In the oral trial, the store manager also testified as a witness, who explained that she knew the defendant from having attended him on occasion . On the day of the arrest, she clearly recognized the defendant as the person who appeared in the security camera footage on the day of the robbery and alerted the police. Three National Police agents who participated in the arrest and in the subsequent report have explained that they received a notice and proceeded to arrest when he was leaving the premises in the company of his daughter. The trial for these events has been seen for sentencing. In search and capture The two accused of the millionaire robbery in the Atrio restaurant, Constantin Gabriel Dumitru and a 29-year-old woman of Mexican nationality, remain in reported provisional prison and without bail, since their arrest in Croatia on August 4 during an international police operation. The Court of Cáceres investigating the case for the robbery in the Atrium had issued a European arrest warrant. Both were identified by the National Police, mainly through the images of the security cameras, three months after the crime was committed, which was perpetrated in October 2021. Since then, they were tracked for about six months through several European countries until they were arrested when they entered a vehicle across the border with Montenegro. Since the robbery in the Cáceres restaurant, the defendants have been traveling around Europe, using false passports and always by car so as not to leave a trace at the airports. They are “specialists” in this type of crime, since he had been arrested for similar cases of theft of bottles of wine or high-value alcohol on the market, and had pending cases from previous years, such as the court in Madrid this Tuesday for the whiskey bottle The woman has no criminal record.