Stolen and sold

100 luxury cars smuggled through Austria

The Georgian, who received a lenient sentence, moved stolen luxury cars worth millions across Austria's borders.(Bild: Camera s/n: 243057013833)

A Georgian man drove high-priced but stolen vehicles (Aston Martins, Porsches and Ferraris) through Europe and especially through Austria on behalf of "unknown backers".

It is probably thanks to the masterful legal plea and the ingenious defense strategy of Viennese lawyer Constantin-Adrian Nitu that the defendant, who has now been sentenced at Eisenstadt Regional Court, got off with a fairly lenient sentence.

For months, the 43-year-old - a family man who had once fled his homeland during the civil war - had acted as a motorized courier for "unknown backers", smuggling the shiniest luxury cars from Ukraine across Europe, especially on Austria's roads.

My client did not know the people behind it. The accusation that he was traveling on behalf of the Georgian mafia did not hold up.

Der Wiener Spitzenanwalt Constantin-Adrian Nitu

The showpiece of the smuggled vehicles:
A Mercedes G63 AMG worth several hundred thousand euros - perfectly manipulated in terms of chassis numbers by clients acting in the slipstream! Also in the dubious fleet: an Aston Martin, a Ferrari F 430 Spider as well as BMWs from the top price categories of this brand and an Audi A8 TD.

(Bild: Brandon Woyshnis - stock.adobe.com)

Nickelsdorf and Kittsee border crossings
The preferred "smuggling route" for the stolen cars: the Nickelsdorf and Kittsee border crossings in eastern Austria and the one in Drasenhofen (Lower Austria). The suspect stopped in Burgenland collected several thousand euros per trip. He took the objects of four-wheeled desire - allegedly blue-eyed - in parking lots or backyards.

(Bild: AgusDLaksono - stock.adobe.com)

At the final stop, he simply parked the high-priced cars. Lawyer Nitu was able to convince the judge that his confessed client had been completely clueless. The lenient sentence: 30 months unconditional imprisonment, of which the "autopilot" has already served eight. The luxury chauffeur was therefore able to leave the country for Spain again.