A wagon left on the tracks and a series of thefts in Katowice

In September last year, the equipment box of the video observation tower on the track under renovation near ul. Hetmańska. The perpetrator stole elements of monitoring equipment from it.

Over the next several dozen hours, on railway route No. 141 (on the Katowice Ligota - Panewniki branch station section), the last wagon of the freight train became detached and remained on the tracks. As it turned out, the perpetrator unhooked the last wagon, took off the sign signaling the end of the train and then attached it to the penultimate wagon.

In November, there were break-ins into the boxes supplying power to railway monitoring cameras at ul. 73 Pułku Piechoty and at ul. Rolna, from which batteries and power supplies were stolen.

"The collected evidence, in particular monitoring records, allowed us to link all the events and identify the person responsible for committing them. During the investigation, the man confessed to all the crimes he was accused of," the Katowice police recalled on Friday.

At the end of April, the local district prosecutor's office submitted an indictment to the court. The 40-year-old was charged with causing a direct risk of a railway disaster and burglary.

At the beginning of August, the Katowice-Zachód District Court sentenced the man to four years in prison and obliged him to compensate in full for the damage caused, the total value of which amounted to over PLN 45,000. zloty. Representatives of the Katowice police and prosecutor's office announced the verdict on Friday.

The 40-year-old was arrested both during the investigation and the trial.

During interrogations, the man explained that the motive for his behavior was the desire to get rich by stealing, said Aleksander Duda, spokesman for the District Prosecutor's Office in Katowice, in an interview with the Polish Press Agency.

That's why he unhooked the wagon - he expected to find something in it that he could make money from.