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Stealing from God

Thieves Made Off with a Quarter Million from Church Boxes

A 10-year spree of robbing church offertory boxes in southwestern Germany has come to an end -- thanks to a wary priest.

After being tricked by a cleric and nabbed by police, a couple in southwest Germany admitted to robbing an estimated 12,000 church offertory boxes to make off with a total of €250,000 ($350,000), officials said Wednesday.

A 57-year-old women and her 44-year-old male companion have admitted to conducting "thievery tours" to various churches and chapels throughout southwestern Germany, according to police in Offenburg, a town about 25 km southeast of Strasbourg. Two or three times a week, starting in 1998, these excursions reportedly netted €150-€250 each.

The pair might still be at it if a priest in the town of Zell am Harmersbach hadn't seen them fumbling around in an offertory box a few weeks ago. He wrote their vehicle's license number in his prayer book, then reported his suspicions to police and identified the pair from a picture book.

The male thief had a criminal record -- he'd been charged with stealing from a church in 2006 -- and the cops were aware of the woman. So last week, when the priest noticed them again, he called the authorities and involved the couple in a conversation to stall them until patrol cars arrived.

Officers searching the woman's garbage-cluttered home near Freiburg found bags and money pouches containing €4,000 in bills and €2,800 in coins.

Both box-robbers were unemployed. The woman claimed to have lapsed into a life of crime because of a failure to receive unemployment benefits. In addition to stealing from offertory boxes, she admitted to pocketing the occasional sacred object, like a painting or cross.

The two had managed to save up a little nest egg in a local bank with the proceeds of their crimes. But the man claimed to have joined the game late and helped with only 180 acts of theft.

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