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Teen sentenced for faking neo-Nazi assault

A teenage girl in the eastern German state of Saxony was sentenced to 40 hours of community service on Friday for falsely claiming she had been assaulted by neo-Nazis.

Published: 14 November 2008 18:00 CET

The court in Hainichen said prosecutors had proved 18-year-old Rebecca K. had misled authorities into believing she had been attacked in the town of Mittweida one year ago.

The girl claimed last November that she had tried to help an immigrant girl who was being accosted by right-wing extremists. But after she intervened the neo-Nazis turned on her and carved a swastika on her hip.

Police investigated the alleged crime, but quickly began to doubt Rebecca’s story. She was sentenced to carry out her community service at an organisation working against right-wing extremism.

Although content with the verdict, chief prosecutor Bernd Vogel said the case was “a defeat for everyone” because the incident would serve as “grist for the mil of certain groups,” referring to the neo-Nazi scene.

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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