People addicted to gambling can resort to different crimes in order to fuel their habit. From heart-stopping crimes such as selling a baby, some gamblers consider violent crimes such as robberies, batteries or theft and fraud.
In one criminal case from Scotland, the manager of a whisky auction house abused his position to steal 45 rare bottles. Worth tens of thousands of pounds, the rare whisky bottles were then sold, and the manager collected a percentage of the proceeds which he then used to fuel a crippling addiction to online gambling and pay gambling debts.
This was the case of a 44-year-old man identified with the initials A.G., who held the role of a manager at Whisky Auctioneer Ltd, as announced by The Times. The stollen whisky bottles were valued at nearly £43,000 ($56,200). According to the authorities, the thefts were completed between August 17 and December 22, 2021.
The Bearsden resident’s crimes were uncovered after an audit early in 2022 uncovered missing stock. This helped identify that a total of 45 whisky bottles were nowhere to be found. In the end, A.G. admitted to stealing the rare whisky bottles from his employer. From the theft, the 44-year-old made a total of £24,500 ($32,000).
In light of the admission to his crimes, the man was sentenced to 300 hours of community unpaid labor. The 44-year-old former manager was also hit with three years of supervised release and must pay £2,000 ($2,600) to his former employer. This sentence was selected as an alternative to imprisonment. It is likely that the man’s participation in Gamblers Anonymous weekly also helped him avoid time behind bars.
Family and Friends Involved in Reselling the Ill-Gained Goods
After the stock audit from February 2022, an investigation was launched, and police was involved. During the investigation, law enforcement uncovered that the 44-year-old man did not act alone.
While he was the sole person responsible for the theft of the rare whisky bottles, he asked friends and family to help him resell them from different auction houses. To make matters worse, one bottle was even sold at Whisky Auctioneer, where the manager worked.
The former manager was able to cover his tracks as he was responsible for the stock at the business. His actions also helped prevent the implementation of a tracking system, which, in turn, helped make the thefts become harder to detect.
The 44-year-old man lied to his friends and family that he was able to obtain the whisky bottles at a lower cost. He asked them to resell the bottles and based on the investigation, received 60% of the proceeds.
