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Autopsy shows dead Neustadt baby was alive at birth

Saxon authorities have determined that a lifeless infant found on Friday in a family home in Neustadt was born alive.

Published: 4 August 2008 14:14 CEST

The exact cause of the infant’s death will be determined in the coming days after the autopsy analysis is finished, the public prosecutor’s office in Dresden said on Monday.

The infant’s 20-year-old mother was arrested on Saturday and remains in police custody under suspicion of manslaughter. Her grandparents, with whom she lives, discovered the child concealed in a duffel bag in their cellar. According to preliminary investigation, no one in the mother’s social circle was aware of her pregnancy.

Four dead infants have been discovered in the German state of Saxony so far this year.

Germany has been plagued with a spate of gruesome infanticide cases in the last few years which have shocked the country. One woman who killed nine of her babies was sentenced to 15 years in prison in early April.

In May, a 44-year-old woman was arrested when her family found three dead babies in her freezer near Bonn.

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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