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Police probe possible copycat bus fire

Less than two days after 20 people died tragically in a bus fire near Hannover, unknown suspects set the back of a public bus in Detmold alight, police in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia reported on Thursday.

Published: 6 November 2008 12:49 CET

The fire broke out at 7:30 am on the city’s 719 line. The 44-year-old bus driver saw the flames in his rear view mirror and was able to quickly quell the fire with an on board extinguisher, police reported.

Shortly before the fire began, the driver had let a group of students off the bus.

Criminal investigators determined that the incident was likely intentional, but could have been negligent arson, because it started on a bus seat.

The cost of damages has not yet been determined.

Meanwhile, more disturbing details of the deadly Hannover bus fire were released on Thursday. Police discovered a 13-year-old girl was among the dead. She was returning from a day trip to Prikings-Hof with her parents when the bus allegedly caught fire due to someone smoking in the bus restroom.

Police said Thursday that identifying the 20 bodies could take days because they were so badly burned.

Experts from around the country are currently examining the bus for clues to the cause of the devastating blaze.

It was Germany’s worst coach accident for 16 years.

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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