Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

CRIME

Ex-NPD treasurer jailed for stealing neo-Nazi party funds

The former treasurer of Germany’s far-right NPD party on Friday was sentenced to two years and eight months in jail for embezzling more than €700,000 ($976,339) in party funds.

Published: 12 September 2008 17:09 CEST

Ex-NPD treasurer jailed for stealing neo-Nazi party funds

Kemna in the courtroom on Friday. Photo: DPA

A state court in Münster found Erwin Kemna had redirected the money from NPD accounts into his struggling kitchen studio company starting in early 2004 through the summer of 2007.

“I considered the finances of my firm and those of the party as one and the same,” Kemna said in his confession at the start of the trial.

The 57-year-old attempted to save his company from going under with the money from the NPD’s party coffers. The right-wing extremist, who has been a member of the neo-Nazi party since 1974, has already been in custody for seven months. He was guaranteed a sentence under three years for cooperating with the prosecution.

NPD Secretary General Peter Marx said he hoped the party would now be able to recoup some of the funds. The German government once tried to ban the party as unconstitutional, but failed due to technicalities. The NPD still receives government funding available to all major political parties.

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.

Url copied to clipboard!