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Police kill fleeing drug dealer with bad shot

UPDATE: A policeman who shot a fleeing man wanted on drug charges in the back of the head has been suspended pending a manslaughter investigation. The officer claimed he had aimed for his legs.

Published: 28 July 2014 15:27 CEST

Police kill fleeing drug dealer with bad shot

Photo: DPA

A 33-year-old man died early on Friday evening as police tried to arrest him in Burghausen, eastern Bavaria.

A plainclothes policeman said he had fired a warning shot in the backyard of the residential block before shooting at the man in an attempt to stop him escaping.

The suspect died immediately at the scene with a bullet to the back of his head, but the officer later said he meant to shoot him in the legs.

An autopsy was carried out on the body in Munich over the weekend.

The Bavarian Office for Criminal Investigation (LKA) has taken over the case and charged the officer with manslaughter through negligence, police said in a statement on Monday.

Investigators are currently interviewing witnesses and fellow officers who saw the incident unfold.

The 33-year-old was wanted for drug offences. A warrant for his arrest was issued several months ago.

It is not clear whether he had been armed or had threatened the officer.

Around 50 people joined a protest on Saturday in Burghausen against "police violence" after the killing.

SEE ALSO: Robber fails because he can't speak German

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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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