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CRIME

US soldier in Grafenwöhr to be tried for fatal beating

The US military said on Wednesday that a private is to be tried over the death of Army Sergeant Juwan Johnson, beaten to death by a gang in Germany in July 2005.

US soldier in Grafenwöhr to be tried for fatal beating
Photo: DPA

Private Bobby D. Morrissette of the 18th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion based in Grafenwöhr, Bavaria faces charges including involuntary manslaughter, conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, and participation in “gang initiation rituals,” according to a statement.

He is also charged with impeding an investigation, impeding a trial by court-martial, and two counts of wilfully disobeying a superior commissioned officer, the statement from the 7th Army Joint Multinational Training Command in Grafenwöhr said.

Morrissette is also accused of committing an indecent act on a girl in the presence of another person and wrongful use of a controlled substance, both stemming from separate incidents, it said.

“We don’t have trial dates at this time,” Army spokeswoman Denver Makle told The Local on Wednesday. “All we know is that there will indeed be a trial, but there is still some processing to do.”

CRIME

German police swoop on gang of foreign dating scammers

German police said Wednesday they had arrested 11 suspected members of a Nigerian mafia group behind a large-scale dating scam.

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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