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Cop facing divorce kills daughter then self

A police commissioner in western Germany fatally shot his eight-year-old daughter before killing himself on Saturday, just two days after his wife told him she wanted a divorce.

Published: 22 January 2012 14:29 CET

Cop facing divorce kills daughter then self

Photo: DPA

The 49-year-old man was based in the Trier police station in Rhineland Palatinate, and was authorised to carry a service weapon, which a police spokesman said was the one he used.

Police suspect that the man was upset about his wife’s plans to file for divorce. The woman had told her husband on Thursday that she wanted to end the marriage.

Both husband and wife had adult children from previous marriages, but none of them lived at the family home in Saarlouis.

Police said the man apparently planned the murder-suicide meticulously, though it appeared he did not leave a suicide note.

“We believe that he was unable to cope with his wife wanting to divorce him,” chief detective Dieter Erbel said.

An autopsy of the bodies is planned for Monday.

DAPD/DPA/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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