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CRIME

US rejects Nazi guard’s ‘delaying tactics’

The US government has sought to clear the way to deport former death camp guard John Demjanjuk, just days after a US court postponed his deportation for proof that he is fit to travel to Germany.

US rejects Nazi guard's 'delaying tactics'
Photo: DPA

The US Justice Department’s brief released on Monday seeks to dismiss the pending motion to stay Demjanjuk’s deportation “because the matter sought to be reviewed is now moot.”

The government said in its filing that Demjanjuk had “engaged in numerous delaying tactics and that reasons no longer exist for an emergency stay of deportation.”

Demjanjuk got an 11th-hour reprieve on April 14 when a federal appeals court in Ohio granted the 89-year-old’s request for a stay of deportation shortly after he had been carried in a wheelchair out of his home to board a flight.

The Sixth US Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday said his deportation should be stayed until April 23. It also called on the government to inform the court about its plans to transport Demjanjuk, who is said to suffer from a variety of illnesses.

The elderly Ohio resident had argued that because his deportation was “imminent,” he could be deported before the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled on his motion to reopen the case.

“Since the BIA has denied his motion to reopen, there is no present, live controversy on which this court can rule,” the Justice Department argued.

Demjanjuk is wanted in Germany on charges of aiding the deaths of at least 29,000 Jews in concentration camps in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II.

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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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