You’d think working in the ski industry would be all powder days and après beers. But for one Austrian ski tech, it turned into a ski heist worthy of a Netflix series. A former staffer at Atomic — one of the biggest names in the business — has been hit with a suspended 14-month sentence and a hefty €80,000 ($160,000nzd) bill after it was discovered he pinched and flogged over 2,600 pairs of skis right out from under the factory’s nose.
Here’s how it went down: his job was to handle blemished skis, the slightly off-spec ones destined for the scrap heap. But instead of binning them, he quietly funneled them into his own underground ski shop. Not above the counter — below it. Starting in 2021, the operation hummed along until authorities raided his home in 2023 and unearthed 300 pairs stacked like firewood. The real kicker? Security footage caught him loading carloads of gear under the cover of darkness, moving more product than some alpine retailers during peak season.
Atomic reckons nearly 2,000 pairs were stolen under this rogue operation. And the black market wasn’t limited to backyard deals — a second man was roped in, buying hundreds of skis on the cheap and reselling them at around €74 ($146nzd) a pop. He claimed innocence — said he didn’t know they were hot. But the main man said otherwise. Turns out, he told his buyer exactly where the skis came from: Atomic. No guessing games.
In court, it all came to a head. The first defendant tried to paint it as a harmless hustle, saying he never made the big bucks and often took less than €50 per pair. But when the judge asked whether “took” really meant “stole,” the man didn’t dodge: “Yes.”
So what’s the fallout? The mastermind walks free with a suspended sentence but must cough up the cash. His accomplice? Guilty too — slapped with an eight-month suspended stint for knowingly moving stolen goods.
It’s a sharp reminder: even in the world of snow and sport, trust can melt faster than spring slush. And no matter how slick your turns are on the slopes, if you’re loading thousands of skis under moonlight, someone’s eventually going to follow your tracks.
