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Family of four shot dead at home in mysterious killing

Police in Baden-Württemberg are investigating what they describe as the mysterious killing of four members of a family who were all found shot dead in their home in the small town of Eislingen.

Published: 11 April 2009 11:24 CEST

Family of four shot dead at home in mysterious killing

A victim is removed from the house Photo: DPA

The alarm was raised by the 18-year-old son of the family who returned home on Friday afternoon to find his 57-year-old father, 55-year-old mother and 24- and 22-year-old sisters shot dead.

The man was in the hallway, the woman in the bathroom, and the two young women in a room an attic room.

Detectives say they are not ruling out either a crime of passion, nor the potential involvement of a stranger in the killings, and stress they are investigating in all directions.

It has been confirmed that the teenager is a member of the local shooting club. A weapon that might have been used in the killings has not yet been found.

The 30-strong investigation team is appealing for witnesses to come forward with information.

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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