For stealing 12.5 tonnes of chocolate that he was meant to deliver from Zaragoza to a warehouse in Elche (Alicante) to sell to a third party for barely 1,200 euros, a 41-year-old Spanish truck driver was given a one-year prison sentence.
The truck driver and the 42-year-old businessman who bought the merchandise from Alicante were both found guilty of receiving stolen goods, according to the Third Section of the Provincial Court of Alicante’s ruling. However, the latter was sentenced to six months in prison. The 12.5 tonnes of chocolate were found at the corporate representative’s storage in the Alicante municipality.
The truck driver, whose criminal past was not taken into account for recidivism purposes, was employed by a company on February 4th, 2021, to transport chocolate cargo in a huge truck from the capital of Aragon to a logistics centre of a company in Elche, according to the court.
According to the appraisal, the 12,500 kilogrammes of chocolate and other delectable goods were worth 113,737.24 euros. After the goods were loaded, the driver offered them to the other convicted guy, who paid for them with just 1,200 euros in cash.
The truck driver acknowledged during the trial that he had stolen the chocolate and that he had called the other defendant, whom he did not know. The other defendant, on the other hand, maintained his innocence, arguing that he trusted the driver’s version that the chocolate was his and that it had been in an accident, and that the sale was urgent because they were perishable goods with an impending expiration date.
Since he planned to obtain the proof of payment for the VAT refund “later” through the phone used to establish contact, the businessman also informed the court that he paid in cash and did not require an invoice.
The court has not found the businessman’s version credible or believable, however, due to the “disproportion” of the economic transaction—the value was “ostensibly higher than the price paid” to obtain “a profit from its sale to third parties”—and the fact that, in addition to the chocolate, there were non-perishable items like water bottles and animal feed included in the merchandise.
It has not been established that the company in Riba Roja de Turia (Valencia) was aware of the illegal origin, but the driver sold the 13 pallets used to load the truck’s goods for 158.5 euros in addition to the chocolate.
As a result, the businessman is sentenced to six months in prison and ordered to pay the remaining half of the costs, while the truck driver is given a one-year prison sentence and a six-month punishment with a daily rate of six euros, in addition to the payment of half of the procedure costs.
Author: Derek Appleton
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