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Cologne terrorist suspects released on lack of evidence

Two men arrested last month at the Cologne-Bonn airport under suspicion of plotting terrorist attacks have been released due to lack of evidence, the Bonn state prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday.

Published: 7 October 2008 18:18 CEST

Cologne terrorist suspects released on lack of evidence

Bonn state prosecutor spokesperson Fred Apostel. Photo: DPA

The two men of Somali origin, Abdirazak B. (23) and Omar Ahmet D. (24), were thought to have been plotting imminent acts of terrorism. Police created a media sensation when they removed the men from a KLM airliner at the Cologne-Bonn airport and conducted a full search of the plane before it continued its journey to Amsterdam on September 26.

The men had been under police surveillance for some time and police said at the time they had found two suicide notes that mentioned “holy war” in one of their apartments as well as suspicious text messages.

But over the weekend it became clear that evidence against the suspects was thin. A suicide note was found to be a love letter, and searches found no weapons, ammunition or other dangerous objects in their homes.

The two men, however, remain under suspicion of committing another crime, Bonn state prosecutor spokesperson Fred Apostel said, adding that the investigation continues despite the suspects’ release.

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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