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Man comes home to thief sleeping on couch

A Berlin man came home on Tuesday evening to find an apparent thief asleep on his couch.

Published: 13 May 2015 14:21 CEST

Man comes home to thief sleeping on couch

No word on what, exactly, the thief had been drinking. Photo: Shutterstock

The 65-year-old got back to his flat in Friedrichshagen at around 10.20 pm and discovered the seriously drunk man dozing in his living room, police reported.

Since the patio doors had been broken open and TV and computer equipment were missing, the owner quickly deduced that the intruder was a thief.

He called his 36-year-old neighbour to help, and the pair waited for the police to arrive – supplying the culprit with a further drink when he awoke from his stupor.

Later in the evening, U-Bahn passengers spotted two men at a U-Bahn station in Wilmersdorf with several bags and two televisions, including a 55-inch set.

Officers arrested the two men, a 21- and a 26-year-old, and found some of the missing possessions from the flat.

All three men are now in custody while police continue their investigation.

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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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