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Driver fled after causing deadly head-on crash

A driver who fled on foot after causing a multiple-car collision on a motorway in the state of Hesse has turned himself in to police. The man was driving the wrong way when he hit another car head-on, leaving one person dead and six others injured.

Published: 6 November 2011 12:18 CET
Updated: 6 November 2011 16:00 CET

Driver fled after causing deadly head-on crash

Photo: DPA

A spokesman for the police in Wiesbaden said the man, 48, was being investigated for manslaughter, not just hazardous driving.

The driver suddenly turned around in the middle of the A3 motorway near Idstein on Saturday evening. Shortly afterwards his car crashed head-on into an oncoming vehicle in the left lane.

That driver, aged 56, died at the site of the accident.

Four other cars were involved in the accident. Police helicopters equipped with infrared cameras were used in the search effort.

On Sunday morning, two people were killed in a separate incident after a man driving the wrong way struck another car on the A96 motorway between Erkheim and Stetten.

DPA/DAPD/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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