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Overnight raids net eight jihad supporters

Eight men have been arrested after investigations against them turned up evidence that they supported terrorist organisations, including Islamic State (Isis), Cologne state prosecutors announced on Wednesday.

Published: 12 November 2014 08:45 CET

Overnight raids net eight jihad supporters

Photo: DPA

Police searched the homes of the eight that were arrested, as well as another 20 people suspected of supporting terrorist networks with counterfeit passports, as well as by sending supplies to Syria.

The eight men arrested were all German citizens between the ages of 22 and 35.

Federal police made one other arrest in connection with the raids, a 58-year-old Pakistani man.

Around 240 police carried out the overnight raids in Cologne and surrounding municipalities.

Police had the group under surveillance since May 2013, the Express reported Wednesday. The paper said that all those under investigation have ties to the Salafist movement.

The group allegedly broke into schools and churches, selling on stolen goods and sending the money to three jihadist networks, including Isis.

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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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