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Drugged up Danes kill one in naked Frankfurt driving rampage

A naked 28-year-old Dane high on drugs and his twin brother led police on a wild high-speed chase through Frankfurt on Tuesday after killing a cyclist and injuring several others.

Published: 2 September 2008 15:24 CEST

The man ran over a 27-year-old woman on a bike on Tuesday morning while driving a delivery van around the city. She smashed into the windshield and died of severe head injuries at the hospital shortly thereafter. While attempting to flee the scene, the Dane then rammed an oncoming police car before slightly injuring the driver of a garbage truck.

The police eventually managed to trap the vehicle with three cars after giving chase for several kilometres. Both men were extremely aggressive during the arrest and three police officers were injured. A police spokesman said the driver was completely naked and his twin was only scantily clad. Neither was “master of his senses” and both were under the influence of drugs.

Police did not mention what substances the men had taken, but the driver’s condition was so bad he could possibly be admitted to a mental institution.

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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