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Drug dealer can keep German job centre start-up business grant

An enterprising unemployed man who was caught dealing in magic mushrooms has been told he does not have to pay the more than €7,000 business start up money the German employment office gave him.

Published: 17 August 2008 12:56 CEST

Drug dealer can keep German job centre start-up business grant

Not allowed Photo:DPA

The 27-year-old man from Hürth near Cologne, set up a company to import the mushrooms from Holland, store them in his home and then deliver them to his customers by car, the Express newspaper reported at the weekend.

The man, named only as Marcel F., wrote up a business plan and submitted it to his case officer at the job centre, complete with details of his internet site with the name pilzkoepp.de – which means mushiehead.

The job centre accepted his plan and gave him a €7,200 grant to start his company. Because the mushrooms are not plants, they were not covered by the narcotics laws.

It was not long before the police knocked on Marcel’s door and confiscated all his stock, before taking him for questioning and prosecution.

The law had been changed to include mushrooms, the Express said, and Marcel’s business was no longer legal.

He was given a suspended 18-month sentence – but the court ruled that he did not have to repay the job centre.

Aide to German far-right MEP arrested on suspicion of spying for China

The man, named only as Jian G., stands accused of sharing information about negotiations at European Parliament with a Chinese intelligence service and of spying on Chinese opposition figures in Germany, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

On the website of the European Parliament, Jian Guo is listed as an accredited assistant to MEP Maximilian Krah, the far-right AfD party’s lead candidate in the forthcoming EU-wide elections.

He is a German national who has reportedly worked as an aide to Krah in Brussels since 2019.

The suspect “is an employee of a Chinese secret service”, prosecutors said.

“In January 2024, the accused repeatedly passed on information about negotiations and decisions in the European Parliament to his intelligence service client.

“He also spied on Chinese opposition members in Germany for the intelligence service.”

The suspect was arrested in the eastern German city of Dresden on Monday and his homes were searched, they added.

The accused lives in both Dresden and Brussels, according to broadcasters ARD, RBB and SWR, who broke the news about the arrest.

The AfD said the allegations were “very disturbing”.

“As we have no further information on the case, we must wait for further investigations by federal prosecutors,” party spokesman Michael Pfalzgraf said in a statement.

The case is likely to fuel concern in the West about aggressive Chinese espionage.

It comes after Germany on Monday arrested three German nationals suspected of spying for China by providing access to secret maritime technology.

READ ALSO: Germany arrests three suspected of spying for China

China’s embassy in Berlin “firmly” rejected the allegations, according to Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua.

According to German media, the two cases are not connected.

In Britain on Monday, two men were charged with handing over “articles, notes, documents or information” to China between 2021 and last year.

Police named the men as Christopher Berry, 32, and Christoper Cash, 29, who previously worked at the UK parliament as a researcher.

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