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Bavarians smash global child porn ring

Police in Bavaria have uncovered a huge international paedophilia pornography ring, which has already resulted in hundreds of investigations in Germany and the collection of data from thousands of suspects in 98 countries.

Published: 23 August 2008 12:30 CEST

Bavarians smash global child porn ring

Photo:DPA

One man has even been jailed for eight years for multiple child abuse of his two daughters and other girls, evidence of which was collected online.

Detectives kept their work secret until now in order to get as much information on as many people as possible, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported.

The massive operation was sparked by the appearance of two child abuse films being posted as pornography on an internet platform in the Constance region. The decisive tip came from Italy, detectives said on Friday.

The videos showed a ten- and 12-year-old girl being severely sexually abused. Within a month this video had been downloaded 48,000 times. The internet address was spread around various online communities and forums, detectives said.

Around 7,500 internet connections were thought to be in Germany, but only 987 suspects could be identified.

The rest of the downloads were in other countries where authorities have also been working on the case. So far 80 investigations have been started in Austria, 65 in Poland, 53 in Turkey and 38 in Australia.

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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