A parking inspector and his wife have been arrested on suspicion of embezzling more than €1m (£878,000) from parking meters in a small German town.
The unnamed municipal employee is believed to have taken coins from Kempten parking meters “on numerous occasions” and placed them in bank accounts to which his wife had access, local police said in a statement.
A money laundering report prepared by a credit institution alerted investigators to the alleged theft. The parking inspector has been charged with 720 counts of theft, while his wife faces 720 counts of accessory to theft.
Kempten Mayor Thomas Kiechle said he was “surprised and shocked” by the allegations.
In October, the Kempten public prosecutor’s office was informed that cash was being repeatedly deposited into several bank accounts, German news agency DPA reported.
Police then searched the office premises in the early hours of November 24, the same day a 40-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman were arrested.
They are now being held in separate detention centers.
It is unclear how long it would have taken the couple to accumulate the sum.
In response to the allegations, Kiechle announced the appointment of a commission to “review past work processes, uncover potential weaknesses, and reliably remedy them for the future.”
Kiechle noted that the couple’s names cannot currently be released due to the ongoing investigation and privacy concerns.
In a written statement, Kiechle said: “I of course support the prosecution and the police in their thorough investigation of the allegations.”
“Until the process is concluded, the presumption of innocence applies,” he added.
Kempten is one of the oldest settlements in Germany. Located in the south of the country, under the Allgäu hills, it has around 70,000 inhabitants.
