Thieves steal €25,000 sauna from Gelderland garden center by pretending they've paid

Two men stole a €25,000 sauna from a garden center in Uddel, Gelderland, simply by walking in and pretending to have paid for it. The case was featured in the Omroep Gelderland investigative program Plaats Delict this week.

According to the owner of the garden center, the men arrived in a white truck to pick up a showroom model sauna, which they said they ordered on Marktplaats. A garden center employee asked if they had paid, and they said they would go do so inside.

They returned a short time later. “They said they had paid and showed a receipt,” the owner said. The employee apparently did not check the receipt carefully. A forklift driver loaded the sauna onto the men’s trailer, and they drove off.

“This kind of crime isn’t dangerous, but it is very brazen,” the garden center owner told the program. He called it “the ideal robbery.”

The thieves are still at large. The sauna has also not been recovered.