A German gentleman criminal who vanished with his employer's truck full of money and enjoyed a spendthrift life at a beachside home in South Africa was sent to jail on Monday for 46 months for serious theft.
Goetz Decker, 47, was nabbed after he bragged to German television and a newspaper about his lifestyle and girlfriends.
Decker admitted making off with an armored van in Germany in 2001, while the other crewman was inside an office.
He shared some of the money with two accomplices and evaded capture for four years till police saw pictures in German mass- circulation Bild newspaper of him grinning alongside his pool.
Decker regaled the court in the western city of Aachen with an eloquent and humorous account of his life of adventure and crime.
"You're a very talented man," commented presiding Judge Harald Brandt as he sentenced him. "The letters in your file were a pleasure to read."
Decker said he traveled to South Africa as a passenger on a cargo ship, using a passport that he bought from a homeless man who resembled him.
"Quite a delightful trip," Decker said.
He had settled 500km along the coast from Cape Town to spend the money.
"Great for holidays. Lovely area," he told the court. "I played a lot of roulette."
Asked by Brandt where the rest of the haul had gone, he insisted: "Basically, it was only just enough to keep going. I gave a lot to my friends. I believe I was rather good at spreading it around."
He said he had kept three-quarters of the 660,000-euro (US$832,000) haul from the van and accomplices obtained the rest.
Decker's extraordinary life story as he told it in court included an arson conviction, avoiding arrest in Poland, cigarette smuggling, jail, a year in Uruguay and winning a huge sum on a German TV quiz show.
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