Police investigate

Thieves with an appetite for regional products

Investigations are in full swing against criminal tourists from Hungary who were after bacon and other delicacies in Austria

A criminal appetite drove this brazen food gang. Five Hungarian accomplices had apparently been coming to eastern Austria for many months to prey on the farm stores of renowned agricultural businesses. The perpetrators left nothing to chance. They always had their sights set on regional specialties that promised special culinary delights. Their hunger for tasty prey was hard to satisfy. As long as there was no danger of being caught, the "voracious" criminal tourists grabbed whatever they could.

Witness immediately raised the alarm: five serial offenders caught
The quintet was finally caught on Christmas Day at around 2.30 pm. In Feldbach in the district of south-eastern Styria, a pedestrian saw the five suspects making food disappear from a farm store in a trolley. The attentive passer-by immediately informed the family that runs the farm store. Together with the witness, the owners promptly confronted the criminals. The police arrived shortly afterwards. The suspected serial offenders were men and women aged between 22 and 44. The value of the foodstuffs amounted to several hundred euros.

The gang had already struck in the same farm store in October, as the investigations revealed. "The suspects are also likely to have carried out a coup in Eastern Styria this year in July using the same modus operandi," explains an official. It is now being investigated whether the Hungarian quintet has other thefts in eastern Austria to their name.