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GERMANY

Swedish man charged with child sex in Haiti

A 67-year-old Swedish man was charged with a score of child sex allegations in Haiti where he worked under the guise of an organization that purports to help street children.

According to reports, the abuse occurred in both Haiti and Germany.

The man was charged along with two other men.

All three are members of a relief organization that proclaims to help street children and, amongst other things, operate an orphanage in disaster-riddled Haiti.

The man was arrested in Berlin, where he worked as teacher for a decade.

According to Björn Sellström, a criminal inspector for the child pornography group with the National Police (Rikskriminalpolisen), the 67-year-old is not known by police in Sweden.

“We have no information on him. However, we are interested in what our German colleagues arrived at and if the man has some Swedish contacts,” Bjorn Sellström told the TT news agency.

The inspector says that it is impossible to generalize too much about paedophiles’ approach, but there are often a couple of common denominators in cases of internationally active paedophiles.

For example, he was not surprised to learn that 67-year-old may have preyed upon boys in earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

“Paedophiles are drawn to poor areas where there are children, where there is a market,” Sellström said to the TT.

Another common denominator is the international networks.

The 67-year-old was arrested along with a German and a Brazilian man.

“It is a borderless activity to find like-minded people all over the world,” said Sellström.

Although difficult to determine an exact figure, a 2009 study estimated that Swedes buy sex from children abroad between 3,000 and 5,000 times per year.

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GERMANY

Germany cracks down on fake Covid vaccine documents

German police have set up a special team to fight a growing number of forged vaccine certificates being sold in the black market

Germany cracks down on fake Covid vaccine documents
People who are fully vaccinated can show their vaccination booklet, which has a stamp and a sticker inside. Photo: Ina FASSBENDER / AFP

Police in Cologne have warned of a group of fraudsters selling fake vaccination certificates, a growing problem the scale of which is still unclear.

The police said the fraudsters worked in encrypted Telegram chats, making investigations difficult, and were selling fake documents with all the stamps and signatures, including a mark about vaccination with BioNTech or AstraZeneca.

READ ALSO: Germany probes Covid-19 testing centres for fraud

The fraud involved both real traffic in fake documents as well as scams luring customers into paying €100.

People in Germany who are fully vaccinated can show their vaccination booklet, which has a stamp and a sticker inside. Those who don’t have a booklet get a piece of paper.

Covid health passes are currently being rolled out across the EU, with a European health passport expected to be available from mid-June.

READ ALSO: What’s the latest on how the EU’s ‘Covid passports’ will work for travellers?

Over 44% of the adult population in Germany has received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, and more than 18% of Germans have been fully vaccinated.

German police have said forged coronavirus vaccine documents are becoming an increasing problem.

Last month, a couple in Baden-Württemberg was accused of selling fake coronavirus vaccination certificates.

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