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Drunk British soldier puts policewoman in hospital

A drunken British soldier bashed a German policewoman bloody and senseless in Lower Saxony at the weekend, during a brawl between soldiers and a group of local men, authorities said Sunday.

Published: 29 November 2009 16:50 CET

Drunk British soldier puts policewoman in hospital

British troops on a base in Germany. Photo: DPA

The 31-year-old policewoman was taken to hospital, a police spokesman said, while the 18-year-old soldier was taken in custody by British military police.

The assault happened in the town of Bad Fallingbostel, where there is a British army base.

The policewoman and a male colleague on patrol came across the brawl between the soldiers and locals. After calling for backup, they tried to break up the men.

But the men fled into a park. As the officers gave chase, the accused soldier allegedly turned on her and punched her repeatedly in the face and around the head.

He also tried to attack the second officer, who came to her rescue, but was stopped by the local men with whom he’d been brawling. The woman was left dazed and bleeding heavily.

Only when the police reinforcements arrived could the drunken soldier be subdued and arrested.

German police took an alcohol reading of the man before handing him over to British military police.

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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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