Gym owner charged with staging robbery

A 40-year-old Groningen gym owner was arrested Tuesday morning for suspicion of staging a robbery in May 2013. The suspect shot himself with a handgun and set fire to his gym. When police responded to an emergency call in the night of May 23 to 24, they found the suspect on the roof of his gym on the Protonstraat.

He had several gunshot wounds and several fires were set in the gym. In the course of the investigation the Dutch Forensic Institute ran into several inconsistencies between the evidence found at the scene and the report the suspect filed, leading them to believe the suspect had staged the robbery. The gym owner was officially charged with arson and illegal possession of a firearm.