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Kidnapped teen escapes four-night rape ordeal

A man with a long history of sexual violence was arrested in northern Germany after a teenage girl he had kidnapped and repeatedly raped managed to escape and raise the alarm.

Published: 17 October 2012 16:08 CEST

Kidnapped teen escapes four-night rape ordeal

Photo: DPA

The 17-year-old girl identified only as Rebecca, had been walking home from a bar in Rostock on Friday night when, regional paper Express said, 28-year-old Mario B. grabbed her and threatened her with a knife.

He allegedly raped her on the street before taking her back to his house and tying her up. There, police believe he assaulted and raped her several more times over the following three days.

Officers said Rebecca survived her ordeal with enough wits about her to escape the house on Tuesday morning when Mario B. briefly left on an errand.

She was able to identify him to police who tracked him down via his mobile phone and arrested him in the city centre. He has already admitted kidnap, the paper said, although he will likely face charges of sexual assault, false imprisonment and aggravated battery.

He has spent around a decade in prison for various sexual and violent attacks since he was convicted of sexual assault aged just 14, and sent to a juvenile detention centre.

He was last released from prison last August after a three-year sentence, under a supervision order during which apparently no strange behaviour was observed.

DAPD/The Local/jcw

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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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