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Hopp blackmailer jailed for nearly four years

A man accused of trying to blackmail German billionaire Dietmar Hopp for more than €5 million was handed a prison sentence of almost four years on Wednesday by a Heidelberg district court.

Published: 9 December 2009 12:31 CET

Hopp blackmailer jailed for nearly four years

Photo: DPA

The 43-year-old man, who runs a trucking firm, was accused of sending three letters in August and September threatening to kill the wife and two sons of the co-founder of software giant SAP. He received three years and nine months in jail.

On September 5, the man was arrested after a police sting operation involving an undercover detective handing over a suitcase of fake money to the blackmailer. A few days later police raided his house in Heilbronn where they found the cash.

Nothing was made public on the case until the man had already been arrested.

He reportedly said the crime was motivated by financial problems with his transport and logistics business located in Gemmingen.

Hopp, who earned his fortune from SAP, has invested heavily in the biotech industry, as well as his home town football team TSG 1899 Hoffenheim. He has not commented on the case.

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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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