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CRIME

German tourist killed in San Francisco shooting

A German tourist has been shot and killed in the US city of San Francisco, and police there have charged an 18-year-old man for the crime, a local media report said late on Monday.

German tourist killed in San Francisco shooting
Union Square. Photo: Wikipedia Commons

Mechthild Schröer , 50, of Minden, North Rhine-Westphalia was walking with her husband in the popular Union Square plaza around 9 pm on Sunday when she was caught in the crossfire between two groups and shot, according to broadcaster KTVU.

“Staff at the St. George Hotel where the couple was staying told KTVU that Schröer and his wife checked into the hotel only hours before the shooting,” the broadcaster reported. “It was their first trip to San Francisco and they were in the city to celebrate their wedding anniversary and the shooting victim’s birthday.”

The woman died of her injuries at a California hospital. Two other people were injured. On Monday night police said they had charged 18-year-old Phillip Stewart with murder.

Shortly before that, the late woman’s husband Stefan left the St. George hotel to board a flight back to Germany, the broadcaster said.

“On behalf of our entire City, I offer my deepest condolences to the family and friends of Mechthild Schröer, who died needlessly from this senseless violence,” Mayor Gavin Newsom said in a statement on Monday.

According to KTVU, the shooting, along with another in the area the same night, was part of a rash of nightclub-related violence in the city.

In response, Mayor Newsom signed an order on Monday giving the San Francisco Entertainment Commission the right to revoke nightclubs’ licences for problem establishments.

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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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