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Fugitive sex offender abuses girl, 13

A sex offender and violent criminal who was let out on day release disappeared last Friday and allegedly sexually abused a 13-year old girl. Police have asked the public for help finding the fugitive in central Germany.

Published: 5 June 2014 11:20 CEST

Fugitive sex offender abuses girl, 13

Reinhard Rühs has been on the run since failing to return to open prison on Friday. Photo: Staatsanwaltschaft Osnabrück

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Prisoner Reinhard Rühs, 51, is suspected of sexually abusing the 13-year-old girl whilst out on day parole from Lingen prison, prosecutors from Osnabrück in Lower Saxony said in a statement.

Police have found no trace of the fugitive since he failed to return to the prison on Friday May 30th. Police say they have leads but there has been no concrete trace of the man. “He has been spotted throughout Germany,” a police spokesman said on Thursday.

Rühs, who is serving time for manslaughter, rape and grievous bodily harm, was granted time out of prison as part of therapy treatment.

According to the Bild newspaper, Rühs has been let out 382 times on day release in the last two years and had been staying in a guesthouse near the prison from May 28th.

The Osnabrück prosecutor believes the 51-year-old could still be in Lingen. “He has no money, no ID, no bike and has spent the last 12 years in prison,” he said.

SEE ALSO: Police appeal over Berlin prison break

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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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