Mobile crane thief foiled by GPS tracking

A Lithuanian man stole a truck-mounted mobile crane from the Brandenburg town of Neuruppin early Saturday morning.

Published: 7 March 2009 10:55 CET

Mobile crane thief foiled by GPS tracking

Not the crane in question. Photo: DPA

But the crane thief didn’t realise the high-tech vehicle was equipped with a satellite tracking system that recorded his every move.

The crane’s owner received an SMS alert on his mobile phone telling him the crane was moving, according to a police statement. He logged onto his computer and tracked the stolen crane down to the A12 motorway heading toward Poland. He called the police, who pulled the crane over two hours later.

The crane thief told police he was given €200 to steal the €1-million crane.

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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