The plan was a simple one, demanding more criminal energy than brainpower: First, manufacture plastic bottles cheaply in eastern Europe and slap a fake bar code on them. Then trek the bottles into Germany, where they fetch 25 euro cents (31 US cents) apiece.

Easier then printing money? Almost. In Germany, empties can be brought to grocery or beverage stores, where they are slipped through modern machines that read the bar code, compute the value of the returns, and spit out a receipt for payment, to be picked up at the nearest cash register.

Three hardworking thieves decided to try doing just such large-scale recycling for a living in September. They brought 150,000 ersatz grape soda bottles, made for a few cents each in Lithuania, to the eastern German state of Schleswig-Holstein and started trying to cash in.

Not according to plan

But -- as happens in most simple criminal plans -- things went astray. Though the trio didn't wind up getting sent through a scanning machine, cartoon style; only to pop out of the other end of a bottle conveyor, tied at the wrists and ankles with plastic six-pack rings, they did get caught before they could turn in all their empties.

The prosecuting attorney said that, had they pulled off their plan, the three men stood to clear more than 30,000 euros ($38,000). The story set off a new round of debate over Germany's system of deposit fees.

High deposits too tempting?

Some argue that the 25 cent deposit is simply too high, and that such large potential sums attract scam artists and thieves. For businesses, they say, the bottle-return situation is one big pain in the pop-top: They spent 1.5 billion euros on automated bottle-exchange machines, and operating costs are around 500 million euros a year.

Currently, Germany has begun using security marks on deposits that are supposed to prevent illegal returns like the Schleswig-Holstein scam. But even though the system was set to go into place on Oct. 1, plenty of automated deposit machines have yet to be set up to spit out faked bottles, according to the industry newsletter Lebensmittel Zeitung (Food Industry News).