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Tyre-slashing granny sentenced to knit sweaters

An 89-year-old granny caught slashing car tyres has been handed the painstaking punishment of knitting sweaters, the Kaiserslautern prosecutor's office said on Friday.

Published: 26 September 2008 14:08 CEST

Tyre-slashing granny sentenced to knit sweaters

I wish you were my granny, tyre lady. Photo: DPA

“When she’s knit the sweaters, then the subject is finished for us,” prosecution spokesman Helmut Bleh said.

The elderly hell-raiser apparently slashed more than 50 tyres in Rockenhausen in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. But the traditional monetary fine “did not come into consideration,” Bleh said, because the woman is destitute.

The knife-wielding pensioner, who has not revealed the motive for her crimes, was moved into an elderly care centre after her transgressions, so townspeople need not fear for their autos.

The outlaw granny agreed on her unique punishment with a social worker, and Bleh said she will have to knit “a few” sweaters to complete the sentence.

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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