Two years before allegedly looting the cellar of the Atrio de Cáceres restaurant with an accomplice and taking 45 bottles of luxury wine worth 1.6 million euros, Constantin Dimitruu, arrested last July in Croatia and imprisoned pending trial, he had already been involved in an episode of theft of prohibitive drinks. He was in a wine shop in the Salamanca district, in Madrid, on May 7, 2019, from where a bottle of Balvenie whiskey that was sold for 5,250 euros, VAT included, disappeared. The Prosecutor’s Office has requested 18 months in prison for him, the maximum for theft, at the hearing held on Tuesday for these events in a Madrid court. The defense, despite highly incriminating high-definition footage from the liquor store’s security camera, requested an acquittal.
The recording is proof of the charge. In it, Dimitruu is seen entering, accompanied by an employee, the heated cellar where the most valuable concoctions were kept. She talks to him for a few moments, and then the clerk walks out. Next, the defendant, dressed in a down jacket and a cap, stands behind the security camera, with his back turned, so that the end of the cap is barely visible on the video. After a while, the lens shakes, which fails to change the viewing angle, and then, slowly, an arm appears on the screen picking up a bottle. Immediately afterwards, Dimitruu reappears on camera. The employee returns, they chat. Then he disappears. Before leaving, he bought some product.
The entire episode lasted eight minutes, according to the recording. Despite the forcefulness of the images broadcast this Wednesday in court, the defense requested acquittal, alleging that the client was able to take the bottle to observe it and then change its location. “White and in a bottle is not always milk,” his lawyer tried to justify. The defendant, who testified by videoconference from prison, defended himself by saying that he went to the place a lot and always bought something. “I have a customer card”, he shielded himself.
The theft happened cleanly, and the employees only realized when they saw that the bottle was not where it belonged. The crime could have gone unpunished if Constantin had not returned to the premises in early August, accompanied by his daughter. The manager recognized him and called the police, who quickly arrived and intercepted him as the man turned the corner. “I lived five minutes away on foot and I always bought, I am a regular customer”, he defended himself during the questioning of his lawyer (he did not respond to the prosecutor).
In the store they already suspected the subject, according to the owner of the company during the hearing. The house has another establishment in La Moraleja and the person in charge pointed out during the trial that bottles had also disappeared there coinciding with the presence of the 48-year-old man. But there was no evidence of that, nor was it part of the cause.
The defense attorney acknowledged that the video from the store was of good quality, but tried to look for holes in the investigation. She claimed that she had to undergo an anthropometric test to determine that the man on the screen was really Dimitruu; that a lineup should have been held –although it was the employee who reviewed the recording herself who recognized him and called the police–; She pointed out that perhaps more customers would have entered later, or even that the bottle was not really that expensive and she had paid for it: the invoice presented by the company was not reliable. In any case, she asked that if he was convicted they apply the extenuating circumstance for undue delay, even taking into account the time his client had fled. There is no record of how Dimitru allegedly managed to hide the bottle. One of the agents said that in the recording it is intuited that he can carry it hidden inside the vest.
The episode occurred two years after the spectacular robbery at the Atrio de Cáceres restaurant, committed in October 2021, according to investigators by the same defendant. That plan was much more sophisticated. The participation of an accomplice was necessary, who reserved a room in the establishment. Again, the security recordings put the police on the trail of Dimitru, who between the coup and his arrest traveled through Spain, the Balkans and Romania, where he is from. The bottles of the millionaire robbery have not appeared. Neither does the whiskey from the Madrid liquor store, although the case has been seen for sentencing.
