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German policewomen get special safety bras

Germany's federal police have begun distributing special wire-less safety bras to some 3,000 female officers to prevent potentially lethal chest injuries, a spokesman said Tuesday.

Published: 5 August 2008 17:33 CEST

German policewomen get special safety bras

Photo: Bundespolizei

“It is a sports bra without metal or plastic so they will not be hurt as easily if there is a tussle,” police spokesman Jörg Kunzendorf told AFP. “It is not a bullet-proof bra but it can be worn under a bullet-proof vest.”

Kunzendorf said it was up to individual police officers to decide whether they wanted to wear the new cotton, polyester and elastic bras when they are on duty. He said during a fight, metal or plastic bits of a normal bra can break off, causing injury to female police officers.

“The impact of a bullet on an underwire or a metal hook can seriously hurt a policewoman or even kill her,” added Martin Schilff, an equipment specialist with the police officers’ union GdP.

He said the new white sports bras emblazoned with Polizei, German for Police, in capital letters around the elastic band were currently only available to federal police officers.

“It would be good if regional police could also benefit,” Schilff 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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