SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

Dawn raids target Rhineland burglary gang

Hundreds of police officers across western Germany carried out dawn raids on Thursday in an effort to crack down on what they believe to be a southeastern European burglary gang. Ten people were arrested.

Dawn raids target Rhineland burglary gang
Photo: DPA

Officers across the Rhineland sprang into action at 6 am looking for stolen goods in Aachen, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Mönchengladbach, Cologne and several other cities.

Along with raiding two asylum-seeker homes, police set up traffic control points where they pulled over and searched suspicious vehicles. Helicopters were also deployed for surveillance.

Parking areas off A4 autobahn are, according to the Cologne police, hotspots of criminal activity. Burglars were known to meet there and exchange stolen goods, a spokesman said.

Main aims of the raids were for the police to get a better idea of how the gang is structured, how widespread it actually is and whether there are others.

The authorities would hold a more extensive briefing on the outcome of the raid on Friday, the spokesman said, adding that while the raids were at dawn, the operation would likely last all day.

DAPD/The Local/jcw

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

CRIME

German police swoop on gang of foreign dating scammers

German police said Wednesday they had arrested 11 suspected members of a Nigerian mafia group behind a large-scale dating scam.

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.

SHOW COMMENTS