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Kaiserslautern footballers arrested in brothel after alleged hit and run

Three players from Bundesliga club 1. FC Kaiserslautern are reportedly being investigated by police on suspicion of drunk driving and committing a hit and run accident.

Published: 6 July 2011 09:32 CEST

Kaiserslautern footballers arrested in brothel after alleged hit and run

Photo: DPA

According to Bild newspaper, 23-year-old goalie Tobias Sippel and midfielders Thanos Petsos, 20, and Ivo Ilicevic, 24 – all members of Kaiserslautern’s first team – went partying Sunday in the city’s historic district.

They then drove a BMW to a nearby brothel, but allegedly hit a parked car as they arrived. After a resident notified the police, the players were apprehended by officers in the red-light establishment, the newspaper reported.

Kaiserslautern Chief Prosecutor Paul Scheidner confirmed the incident occurred but told Bild it was not clear who had been driving the car.

However, Sippel was forced to submit his drivers licence immediately to the police.

Club boss Stefan Kuntz is reported to be extremely upset at his players and talked to them about the situation during practice on Tuesday.

In a statement to Bild the club said it was aware of the situation but declined further comment.

The Local/mdm

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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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