Man Convicted After Stealing Over 2,600 Pairs of Skis From Factory and Selling Them Cheap

An Austrian man has been convicted of stealing more than 2,600 pairs of skis in a scheme that played out over two years — quietly turning factory rejects into cash.

The 58-year-old worked for Atomic, one of the world’s leading ski manufacturers, at the company’s plant in the Pongau region of Salzburg, according to Salzburger Nachrichten, ORF Salzburg and Yahoo Life.

Per the outlets, he was handed a 14-month suspended sentence and ordered to repay €80,000, or about $88,000, to the company in April,

The outlets reported that company video footage captured the man loading skis at night, helping to confirm the scale of the thefts.

The Regional Court of Salzburg found that between 2021 and late 2023, the man took skis with small production defects — items meant to be destroyed — and sold them privately for about €50 apiece, per the outlets.

Investigators said he wasn’t acting alone. A second defendant — a 72-year-old Bulgarian man — was convicted of reselling roughly 600 pairs and received an eight-month suspended sentence, the outlets reported.

In court, the man apologized “to the company, to my family, and to the court,” saying he had “done something stupid back then — the first time in my life,” Salzburger Nachrichten reported.

He told the judge he “usually asked for significantly less than 50 euros and also received less.”

“[The 72-year-old Bulgarian man] knew that I worked for Atomic,” the thief told the judge, per the outlet. “I also told him I had taken the skis.”

When the judge pressed him — “By ‘took them,’ do you mean ‘stole them’?” — he answered simply, “Yes,” per the outlet.