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CRIME

Police: We understand why you don’t feel safe

The head of Germany's biggest police union said it would be launching a “safety alliance” between different states' forces as there were parts of the country where people justifiably no longer felt safe.

Police: We understand why you don't feel safe
Photo: DPA

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“There are zones within cities in which the citizens no longer feel safe, and rightly so,” Oliver Malchow, head of police union the GdP, told Der Spiegel magazine ahead of announcing the “safety alliance” launch on Monday.

The group will be tasked with figuring out how best to police areas with rising crime levels. This will likely include more officers on the street, increased CCTV presence, public alcohol bans and better protection for emergency services when called to incidents.

“Our mission to protect the state and to assert our monopoly on the legitimate use of force cannot be undertaken alone,” said Malchow.

The GdP, which has 180,000 members, also warned of an increase in football violence on Friday which will also be assessed by the “safety alliance.”

“Recent brutal clashes in central Cologne highlight that football violence is intensifying, and shifting onto streets and public transport,” said Malchow.

READ MORE: Smash-and-grab raiders drive car into Berlin Apple store

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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.

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