Trial in Feldkirch

Drug deals pulled off on a grand scale

(Bild: Dorn Chantall)

Family father made large-scale drug deals in Vorarlberg for years. On Tuesday, the trial in Feldkirch came to an end. 

On Tuesday, the blameless man from Oberland was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment for the crime of drug trafficking and preparation of drug trafficking. He must also pay the state a forfeiture amount of 845,000 euros. The Senate considered it proven that the man purchased almost 18 kilograms of cocaine and 16 kilograms of herbal cannabis for around 900,000 euros in the period from August 2020 to February of this year and sold them on for a profit.

International investigations
The accused had also grown cannabis in his home. Here, the public prosecutor assumed a harvest yield of 400 grams. As in his police interview, the defendant remained silent during the trial about the allegations of the considerable quantities of cocaine and cannabis. He only commented on his "private plantation" discovered during the house search and the whereabouts of the harvest. "For the most part, I wanted to bake cookies from the marijuana and then sell them on to pay my debt collection debts." He had consumed the rest himself. The authorities had tracked the man down in the course of international investigations, focusing on the surveillance of so-called cryptocommunication services. The investigators also succeeded in breaking up a Europe-wide drug ring to which the 30-year-old man from Oberland belonged.

It is incomprehensible why the accused refused to testify.

Staatsanwältin Konstanze Manhart

The trap was finally sprung during a house search in January. The analysis of chat messages on two confiscated cell phones confirmed the suspicion of large-scale drug dealing. After the verdict was handed down, the presiding judge of the jury senate, Verena Wackerle, emphasized the suffering that the accused had caused many people through his drug dealings. And according to the chat, another 40 tons of cocaine were already on their way. In this context, a Dornbirn businessman was sentenced to an additional eight years last week.