An alleged million dollar profit ends with a cocaine smuggling operation: 62-year-old Roman Garber spends nine months behind bars in Colombia and experiences a nightmare. Family members desperately try to help him.
“I thought I’d take a few days off and if there’s nothing there’s nothing. What have I got to lose?” With these thoughts in mind, Roman Garber from Southern Styria naively flies to Quito, Ecuador, and never returns in November 2021. The journey ends before the Styrian in prison in Cartagena, Colombia.
The first days he lives in a mass cell without a mattress, there is no medicine, but vermin. Garber loses 17 kilos, he says in an interview with the editors of “Am Schauplatz” by ORF. He risks decades in prison and a fine of hundreds of thousands of euros.
‘British Treasury’ promised him millions in profit
How did this nightmare come about? It all started in the summer of 2021 with an email we all know: a Kate Thompson, reportedly from the British Treasury, promising a $10.5 million profit distribution from a fund. At first, the pensioner is still skeptical, but “Kate” manages to gain his trust – even with a transfer of 500 euros in pocket money. In South America he has to sign the original documents, he gets paid for his flight and hotel.
The first times, Garber cancels the flights, also to test the seriousness of his counterpart, he later tells his lawyer. But on November 10, 2021, he will fly anyway.
Fan holds white surprise
At the hotel in Quito, a “Mister Paul” awaits the Styrian Marker. He signs the certificate, now he should fly back home – via Colombia and with the request to bring a respirator to Switzerland. Garber takes the foil-wrapped package with him.
At the airport of Cartagena in Colombia, the police took him aside. In a metal cassette inside the device, they find “a bag of white powder inside” – a total of 8.5 kg of cocaine worth 1.6 million euros!
Despite the case, there is no legal misunderstanding
Since then, relatives have been desperately trying to help Roman Garber. Everyone agrees: the cheerful and adventurous Lebringer, who most recently lived in Wagna, is not a criminal, he has fallen into the trap of an international drug cartel.
“There is no misunderstanding from a legal point of view,” says his Styrian lawyer Yvonne Rieser, who works in Colombia. It is still unclear whether Garber agrees to this and whether he can then be transferred to Austria.
The Austrian embassy in Bogota has supported the Styrian since his arrest, the foreign ministry said in response to a request from “Steirerkrone”. For data protection reasons, they do not provide information about the status of the case.
Source: Krone
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
