Seven young men were charged of being involved in stealing €143,412 worth of food from the Lidl San Gwann supermarket, which they then sold to other shops. Two of the arraigned admitted their involvement.

Five of them are former Lidl employees and two work for another company. The alleged robberies used to take place during the night.

The accused are Roderick Garcia, 28, of Cospicua, Andrea Buzza, 23, of Gudja, David Abela, 27, of Cospicua and Sammy Piscopo, 23, of Fgura.

Shop owners Darren Xuereb , 30, of Iklin, and Joseph Vella, 41 of Naxxar were charged with handling stolen property, while Sandro Vella, 33, of Marsascala, was charged with helping the Lidl employees facilitate the theft. Three of the employees, one shop owner and the alleged facilitator pleaded not guilty but employee David Abela and shop owner Joseph Vella admitted to the crime and are awaiting sentencing.

Taking the witness stand, Clayton Bugeja Camilleri, who works at San Gwann supermarket said that the theft came to light when accounting discrepancies started to be noticed. These amounted to €89,000 in September, €40,000 in October and €31,000 in December. He said that it came to a point when orders being made were too much higher than sales, with stock being deducted at a fast pace while sales were being kept at a normal rate.

The figures were sent from Lidl’s warehouse in Sicily and confirmed during stock-taking.

The witness said that he became involved when the company realised something was wrong and stock items were missing. “We were ordering more than what we sold and one of the workers told me what was going on at night,” he said.