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Police raid German-based Ford plants in corruption probe

Some 100 police officers raided sites linked to the US automaker Ford in Germany early Monday in connection with a corruption probe, prosecutors in the western city of Cologne said.

Published: 13 December 2010 17:33 CET

Police raid German-based Ford plants in corruption probe

Photo: DPA

Searches were carried out at Ford plants, at an unidentified company in the western German city of Leverkusen, and at about 30 other locations that included private homes, a statement said.

“We also arrested one person,” Cologne state prosecutor Christina Pohlen told news agency DPA.

Prosecutors said they had been working since September on an investigation that involved Ford staff and others suspected of corruption.

According to the prosecutor’s office in Cologne, Ford staff are suspected of regularly receiving “material advantages” from companies that work with the automaker or which sought contracts with it.

In exchange, the Ford workers allegedly favoured benefactors when contracts were being decided upon or established false bills in their favour.

“The state prosecutor’s office also examined the work stations of several people under suspicion at the company Ford,” company spokesperson Bernd Meier told DPA, adding that the company was working closely with investigators.

AFP/DPA/ka

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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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