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Police: Dead baby may have been slain

A dead baby found wrapped in towels on the ground in a garage might have been murdered, and could even have been thrown out of a passing train, detectives in Potsdam say.

Published: 25 December 2011 09:15 CET

Police: Dead baby may have been slain

Photo: DPA

A criminal investigation has been launched after the post-mortem on the newborn girl showed she had been born alive and had been injured.

She was found wrapped in towels on the ground of a garage complex by a man who went there to collect his car on Friday morning.

Detectives are still evaluating witness statements, but have been unable to figure out where the baby came from – or get any information about who her mother may have been.

A police spokeswoman said the autopsy showed injuries on the baby, but no conclusions could be drawn on where they came from.

Investigators are not ruling out the possibility that the baby could have been thrown from a passing train, as a track runs right next to the garage.

The Local/DAPD/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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