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Suspected Russian spy pair arrested

German Federal Police have arrested a man and woman on suspicion of having spied for Russia's foreign intelligence service for over two decades, according to a Saturday news report.

Published: 22 October 2011 10:17 CEST

Suspected Russian spy pair arrested

Photo: DPA

Der Spiegel magazine said the married couple had been working undercover in Germany. Known as Heidrun and Andreas A., both suspects deny the accusations.

Police reportedly walked in on the woman while she was listening to encoded radio transmissions. A task force from the German Federal Police or Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), arrested the pair last Tuesday in Marburg and Balingen, in central Germany.

They also confiscated two Austrian passports that appeared to have been forged.

The documents stated that Andreas A. was born in Argentina, while Heidrun A.’s birthplace was listed as Peru. But inquiries made by German authorities in South America confirmed that the passport data had been falsified.

Der Spiegel said authorities believe the two alleged spies have been working in Germany since the KGB, the Soviet Union’s spy agency, was still in operation.

They started investigating the couple after the Federal Bureau of Investigation busted a Russian spy ring in the United States.

The Local/arp

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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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