Penalty order in Winterthur Man fails to pay installments and sells leased BMW - it will be expensive

In Winterthur, a man leases a BMW, doesn't pay - and then sells the leased car. This is now costing him dearly.

A 35-year-old North Macedonian from Winterthur got himself into legal trouble because of his love of fast cars. In fall 2021 and spring 2022, he leased two luxury vehicles from the same company: a BMW M5 worth 95,000 francs and a Porsche Panamera for 42,000 francs, as reported by the "Landbote" newspaper.

After leasing, the man began not using the vehicles as intended. Just a few months after taking possession of the BMW, he deregistered the license plate at the road traffic office and applied for a new one, as a result of which the warning "Change of owner prohibited" was removed from the system.

This notice is intended to prevent leased vehicles from being sold. With the new license plate, the man sold the BMW to a Kosovar car dealer in the canton of Thurgau for around CHF 75,000.

Unconditional fine

The man did not reliably pay the leasing installments for the Porsche, which ultimately led to the leasing company terminating the contract. Despite being asked to return the vehicle, he hid the Porsche in his garage and continued to use it. It was not until spring 2024 that he deposited the license plates at the road traffic office and parked the Porsche in a locked garage in Winterthur.

The man was sentenced by the public prosecutor's office in Winterthur/Unterland to an unconditional fine of 180 daily rates of CHF 30 each, i.e. a total of CHF 5,400, for embezzlement (BMW) and theft of property (Porsche). The public prosecutor's office decided to waive the revocation of a previous conviction from 2020, in which the defendant had been sentenced to a conditional prison sentence of eight months.