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Pick-pocketing on the rise on Berlin trains

More passengers are falling victim to crime on Berlin’s public transport. The number of pick-pocketing cases has increased by 20 percent in a year, the police said on Monday.

Published: 21 October 2013 10:11 CEST

Pick-pocketing on the rise on Berlin trains

Photo: DPA

Berlin police said crime increased by 11.5 percent in the last year with the number of people being pick-pocketed going up from 4,910 to 5,850.

And crime on the city’s U-Bahn and trains rockets on weekend nights, the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper reported.

Police spokesman Meik Gauer said the thieves targeted a certain type of victim.

“Most of these incidents take place at the weekend when people are drunk at night after visiting clubs and get the train and are helpless because of the alcohol,” he said.

Thieves often cut open passengers’ bags and pockets with razor blades or Stanley knives, he added.

Gauer said: “A lot of the time the victim is unconsciously helping the thief when, for example, they wear headphones. The criminal then just has to follow the cable to the iPhone.”

READ MORE: Berlin bids to put energy grid back in public hands

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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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