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Neo-Nazis take over train

Neo-Nazis on their way to May Day demonstrations in Hamburg took over part of a train and harassed passengers, daily newspaper Bild reported on Friday.

Published: 2 May 2008 12:51 CEST

Neo-Nazis take over train

NPD supporters march in Hamburg on May 1. Photo: DPA

A police spokesman confirmed to German news agency DDP that about 60 far-right agitators – some of them hooded – took over the first two cars of a regional train headed to Hamburg from Pinneberg in the eastern German state of Schleswig-Holstein on Thursday morning.

The newspaper initially reported only 20 neo-Nazis had entered the train.

The neo-Nazis blocked other travelers from entering the train, according to DDP, saying “this is a members-only affair.”

An emergency call from a witness reached police after the train had already arrived in Hamburg, the spokesman told DDP. Bild reported that police did nothing to stop the takeover.

The neo-Nazis shouted slogans including “after today foreigners and Germans will ride separately on Deutsche Bahn trains” and “foreigners ride in freight cars,” according to press reports.

German police swoop on gang of foreign dating scammers

The Black Axe gang was involved internationally in “multiple areas of criminal activity”, with a focus in Germany on romance scams and money-laundering, Bavarian police said in a statement.

The dating trick was a “modern form of marriage fraud”, police said.

“Using false identities, the fraudsters for example signalled their intention to marry and in the course of further contact repeatedly demand money under various pretexts,” police said.

The money was subsequently transferred to Black Axe in Nigeria “via financial agents”, authorities said.

In the process, the gang used a “commodity-based money laundering” scheme where products, often with a seeming “charitable purpose” were bought and delivered to Nigeria.

Some 450 cases of romance scamming had been reported in the region of Bavaria in 2023 alone, with the damages rising to 5.3 million euros ($5.7 million), police said.

The suspects, who all held Nigerian citizenship and were aged between 29 and 53, were arrested in nationwide raids on Tuesday.

Law enforcement swooped on 19 properties, including both homes and asylum shelters, police said.

The Black Axe gang had “strict hierarchical structures under leadership in Nigeria” operating different territorial units, police said.

The group had a “significant influence” on politics and public administrations, in particular in Nigeria.

Globally, the gang’s main areas of operation were “human-trafficking, fraud, money-laundering, prostitution and drug-trafficking”.

Black Axe operated under the cover of the Neo Black Movement of Africa, an ostensibly charitable organisation used as “camouflage” for the gang’s structures.

The action against Black Axe was the first of its kind in Germany, police said.

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