Cases in several states
Police warn of heat pump theft
07/01/2023, 12:15 p.m
In the future, heat pumps will heat many houses and apartments. According to an LKA report, they are also an interesting source of income for thieves: numerous state police authorities are already registering thefts.
According to a report, the police are warning of an increase in thefts from heat pumps. The expensive and heavy devices could increasingly become the target of criminals, writes the “Spiegel” in its new issue, citing the Baden-Württemberg State Criminal Police Office. The authority expects “that there will be an increase in this area of crime in the future”. There is a market for the pumps “in large parts of the world”.
According to the report, numerous state police authorities are already recording individual cases of theft. Apart from in Baden-Württemberg, cases are known to the state criminal police offices in Bavaria, Rhineland-Palatinate, Schleswig-Holstein, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. According to the security authorities there, there were ten cases in Brandenburg in 2022, as the magazine further reported. In Lower Saxony, the State Criminal Police Office also recorded a low double-digit number – and a slight increase compared to the previous year.
The experts assume an unreported number, as the “Spiegel” further reported. Although criminal offenses are recorded in the police crime statistics, only in a few cases are stolen or damaged goods included. The figures mentioned are therefore based on special evaluations by the police authorities in the reporting statistics.
According to the Baden-Württemberg State Criminal Police Office, many of the registered thefts occur “on construction sites or in shell structures,” as the magazine further reported. Some of the pumps were left unattended in the open air, so that “regardless of the weight” there were thefts, “possibly with the help of larger transport vehicles”.