Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

CRIME

Deutsche Bahn’s new ticket-cheat policy to inflate crime stats

The German crime rate is set to be boosted in the next months by the new zero tolerance policy of rail operator Deutsche Bahn towards tickets cheats, Der Spiegel reported Saturday.

Published: 25 July 2009 13:34 CEST

Deutsche Bahn's new ticket-cheat policy to inflate crime stats

Photo: DPA

Deutsche Bahn (DB) has begun to press charges for fraudulent acquisition of services every time someone is caught without a ticket, the magazine reported.

The new rule will add another 600,000 to the number of recorded crimes every year, an increase by around 10 percent.

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble is reported to be less than impressed with DB’s new policy. Estimates suggest that around 200 extra police officials are needed to process the criminal charges.

Der Spiegel reported that talks with public prosecution authorities are to be held discussing whether such cases are to pursued at all, but the Interior Ministry denied this in a statement on Saturday.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

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.

Url copied to clipboard!