Rigged roulette ball – three pensioners convicted

Just a few days ago, we reported on a case from Dresden in which several men manipulated slot machines and thus obtained over 18,000 euros. In a somewhat different case, three pensioners had to answer to the District Court of Weiden for having developed a manipulated roulette ball. However, before the remote-controlled roulette ball could be used, the fraud was discovered. The “pensioner trio” first ended up in custody and now before the court about two weeks ago.

How was the rigged roulette ball supposed to work?

The goal of the criminal trio is said to have been to swindle several hundred thousand euros in different casinos. To do this, they manipulated a roulette ball in such a way that it had a vibrating motor with a battery and charging unit. The remote-controlled roulette ball has a diameter of 21 millimeters. The men are said to have intensively exchanged views about the project over a longer period of time and clearly expressed their willingness to use the ball in casinos with fraudulent intent.

What is surprising about the case, however, is that the elaborately manipulated roulette ball was probably never used. The “pensioner trio” could not earn a cent with the fraudulent scam. It remains questionable, however, why the men aged 60, 66 and 70 were caught by the police at all if no fraud had taken place at all.

Foreign authorities decrypted Messenger

The criminal group was blown up by accident: French authorities managed to decode a special messenger about two years ago, about which the “trio of pensioners” is said to have communicated. Several telecommunications surveillance followed and finally an access by the German police because it was feared that the manipulated roulette ball could be used undetected in foreign casinos.

On March 16, 2022, the district court in Weiden then sentenced a total of four people to prison terms of between one and two years. The fourth person is a 32-year-old son of the oldest suspect. All four men were convicted of “preparing a crime of commercial and gang fraud”. To the delight of the four men, all sentences were suspended.

Self-experiment with surprising result

As part of the investigation, a commissioner from “Kripo Weiden” checked the functionality of the manipulated roulette ball together with two public prosecutors, a casino manager at the Bad Wiessee casino and her security manager. The result: The remote-controlled roulette ball would have worked with a high degree of probability and the perpetrators could have chosen the next number as they wished. Despite the high security precautions in casinos, the “retiree trio” would have succeeded in winning high loot.

Conclusion

It is quite impressive that the “Retiree Trio” managed to manipulate a roulette ball in such a way that it could have been used in German casinos without attracting attention. It is only due to coincidence that the men were caught before the first crime was committed and could now be sentenced for their preparatory actions. So the “casino crooks” were about to pull off a coup à la films like “Ocean’s Eleven” in German casinos.