A 50-year-old man died in southern Germany on Saturday after a shootout with police, who had been called to his home because of a domestic dispute.
Police in the Bavarian city of Kempten said the man had opened fire on an elite task force who were trying to raid his home. His wife, from whom he separated, had called for help because of family problems.
When police tried to contact him to speak with him face to face, he allegedly threatened them with a gun and threatened to kill himself or others.
A commando unit then stormed the house in the town of Weissenhorn, and in the ensuing exchange of gunfire, the man died.
German police said Wednesday they had arrested 11 suspected members of a Nigerian mafia group behind a large-scale dating scam.
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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