Post by IAMCAPER on Jun 10, 2005 12:55:58 GMT -4
BERLIN - A German court on Friday sentenced a trio of elderly bank robbers to lengthy jail terms after the three men, aged between 64 and 74, confessed plundering more than $1.2 million in a string of armed hold-ups.
The men, known as the “grandpa gang” in the German press, had admitted raiding 14 banks between 1988 and 2004.
The court in the western town of Hagen gave the youngest gang member a 12-year sentence, while his 73- and 74-year-old accomplices were given 10 and nine years respectively.
Police arrested the pensioners, who had previously spent much of their lives behind bars, late last year. Wilfried Ackermann, 73, deemed to be the leader of the aging outfit, had already spent 40 years of his life in prison.
German media reported he took to robbing banks because he could not live on the state pension he built up while behind bars.
The men, known as the “grandpa gang” in the German press, had admitted raiding 14 banks between 1988 and 2004.
The court in the western town of Hagen gave the youngest gang member a 12-year sentence, while his 73- and 74-year-old accomplices were given 10 and nine years respectively.
Police arrested the pensioners, who had previously spent much of their lives behind bars, late last year. Wilfried Ackermann, 73, deemed to be the leader of the aging outfit, had already spent 40 years of his life in prison.
German media reported he took to robbing banks because he could not live on the state pension he built up while behind bars.