A parking inspector and his wife have been detained on allegations of embezzling over €1m out of the parking meters of a modest German town.
The unnamed municipal employee is thought to have taken cash from parking meters in the town on multiple occasions and placed them in bank accounts that his spouse had control over, local police said in a release.
A money laundering report by a bank notified authorities to the suspected embezzlement. The attendant has been charged with 720 counts of theft, while his spouse is charged with 720 counts of assisting in theft.
Kempten Head the mayor said he was stunned and disappointed by the claims.
In October, the local public prosecutor's office were notified that money was repeatedly being deposited into several bank accounts, according to sources.
Officers then searched office premises in the morning of 24 November, the very day that a man in his forties and a woman in her late thirties were taken into custody.
They are now being detained in separate detention facilities.
It is not clear how long it might have required the couple to accumulate the sum.
In reaction to the allegations, Kiechle declared the formation of a committee to review past work processes, uncover possible flaws, and effectively correct them for the coming years.
Kiechle noted that the names of the couple could not at this time be released due to the active probe and privacy concerns.
In a official comment, Kiechle said: "I naturally support the legal authorities and the police in their thorough investigation of the allegations."
"Until the proceedings are concluded, the presumption of innocence applies," he continued.
The town is one of the oldest towns in the country. Located in the country's south, it sits under the hills of the Allgäu and has around seventy thousand residents.
