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Bakery driver on trial for burying ‘lying’ girlfriend alive

A 40-year-old bakery delivery man went on trial in Cologne on Tuesday for burying his girlfriend alive.

Published: 20 January 2009 15:46 CET

Bakery driver on trial for burying 'lying' girlfriend alive

Photo: DPA

Frank G. is accused of murder after allegedly assaulting the woman in the district of Merheim on May 18, 2008 and then quickly burying her while she was still alive. The man was apparently afraid that his girlfriend would leave him for another man, news agency DPA reported.

He’d left his wife – who had already reported that he was violent – for the 24-year-old victim. The accused described her as a chronic liar and thief, saying he had considered leaving her in 2007.

According to prosecutors, he lured the young woman to hospital grounds under the pretense that she should help him dig up €300,000 he’d buried in the area. After effectively digging her own grave, the man hit her on the head with a billy club, then hit her again and tied her up with a belt when she tried to escape from the hole. He then buried her alive.

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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