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Chinese and Russian industrial spying widespread in Germany

Chinese, Russian and Iranian spies have tried to steal industrial secrets from half of all major German firms, a state security official told Financial Times Deutschland on Friday.

Published: 16 May 2008 11:55 CEST

Chinese and Russian industrial spying widespread in Germany

A scene from a bad German TV movie. Photo: DPA

“Every second German company has been affected, studies show,” with the loss of information valued at between €15 billion and €50 billion ($23 billion and $78 billion) a year, said Hartwig Möller, head of North Rhine-Westphalia’s intelligence agency.

“Together with the Chinese it is first and foremost Russian and Iranian intelligence agencies that are active in Germany,” Möller told the FTD.

According to a report from the BfV federal domestic intelligence service released on Thursday, foreign intelligence agencies even use students and trainees to steal sensitive information on new products and research projects.

“We have information on Chinese students and those on scholarships trying to grab any research results they can get their hands on,” Möller said.

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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