Former U23 World Champion Pawel Szczepaniak, 35, has been sentenced to four years in a German prison for leading an international criminal gang focused on stealing shipments out of trucks from 2013-2023, according a Tag24 news article.

A German court has convicted the former amateur bike racer of stealing cargo from at least ten trucks filled with shipped goods, including cycling related, from highway parking lots and gas stations over the course of ten years. The goods were then resold in Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Spain.

In 2010 Pawel, a cyclocross specialist, won the UCI U23 Cyclocross World Championship, with his younger brother Kacper finishing second. Shortly thereafter, the brothers tested positive for EPO (Erythropoietin) and were stripped of their world championship medals, with Pawel banned from sport for eight years.

Pawel then moved to Mallorca, Spain opened a bike shop and was viewed as a typical businessman. But behind the bike shop facade he began building an international crime organization in 2013 to steal goods from trucks in Germany. According to police reports, the gang’s modus operandi was quite simple. They staked out highway rest areas at night in Saxony, used knives to quickly slice open tarpaulins on parked trucks, stole the cargo, fled and sold the ill-gotten goods abroad and at Pawel’s bike shop.

Now Pawel will spend time behind prison bars, instead of handlebars.

Photo Credit: Bart Hazen

© 2019-2024 All Rights Reserved Gran Fondo Daily