Whenever the 28-year-old sees a patrol car in the Munich district where he lives, he looks the other way.

He finds it difficult to look his colleagues in the eye, he says and sobs.

"The fact that colleagues have to justify themselves because of my behavior, of individuals," shames him.

"That they are treated as if everyone is like that."

A trial about the drug scandal that shook the Munich police and the public two years ago began with a tearful confession before the district court on Thursday.

The accused is one of 37 police officers accused of involvement in the scandal.

The public prosecutor assumes that he had cocaine delivered to the police station and to the Oktoberfest duty.

He is also said to have sold drugs to colleagues himself and warned his dealer about investigations.

He "did shit," says the 28-year-old in his hour-long confession, which was repeatedly interrupted by loud sobs.

"We celebrated together, we used drugs together." He wanted to be "open and honest".

He also got drugs for others

The accused describes a large professional and private "double burden" because he regularly had to commute from Munich to his family in Thuringia.

And for this burden he needed "an outlet": "At some point I just realized physically that it was just killing me." He calls his drug use in Munich nightlife a "parallel world".

A "way to break out," he says.

"It was a combination of huge weakness and my somehow young age." In 2016 he consumed cocaine for the first time.

"Something fucking made me say yes."

Yes, according to the indictment, he said very often afterwards: He is said to have bought cocaine at least 69 times in 2016 and 2017.

But it didn't stop there: He admits to having passed the drugs on to police colleagues, even if he denies having made any money from it.

He got the drugs for others, but never asked for more money than he paid for them himself.

He doesn't know anymore why he always got the drugs for everyone.

Maybe out of a certain need for recognition: "Now I'm the cool one here."

A total of 79 crimes have been charged, one of the allegations weighs particularly heavily: betrayal of official secrets.

At the beginning of 2017 he was for an interview in Commissariat 83, the drug investigation.

He speaks of "audacity" himself. "There are a few comments that come to mind," says the judge dryly.

When he discovered a picture of his dealer on the wall there, he is said to have warned him about the investigation.

Former dealer as key witness

However, the otherwise largely confessed 28-year-old denies this.

His drug use and his job as a police officer never got in each other's way, he claims.

He also knows nothing about police discounts on cocaine, which his former dealer, who started the proceedings against the police as a key witness, spoke about several times.

"There were no such special discounts," he says.

"I paid the money he wanted for my cocaine."

However, he spoke to a colleague who was also taking coke at the time about the investigation into the dealer and told him “that we should keep our hands off it”.

He himself states that he had already put this into practice before he was arrested by his colleagues in 2018.

The drug scandal had shaken the Munich police headquarters when it became known in 2020.

The public prosecutor's office conducted 39 investigations against 37 police officers and brought six charges.

15 proceedings were discontinued, according to spokeswoman Anne Leiding, a penal order was requested in twelve cases, even if it involved very large amounts of money.

"Especially in Corona times, we were encouraged to make use of penal orders as far as possible in order to relieve the courts," said Leiding.

"In addition, by avoiding public main hearings, the intention was to protect the reputation of the police."

In a first judgment, a police officer was warned in October 2021 and conditionally sentenced to a fine of 2,250 euros because the Munich district court considered it proven that he had bought doping substances.

At the beginning of November, another accused was acquitted, according to a district court spokeswoman.

In the case, the main hearing came because the police officer had lodged an objection to a penalty order.

The legal processing of the scandal will continue in the coming week.

A new trial against another police officer accused in the drug scandal begins on Tuesday.

The verdict in the case against the 28-year-old could fall on February 16.