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Six arrests after suspected drug deal goes wrong

One person was shot, four injured and six arrested in a Berlin fight over an apparent drug deal gone wrong Tuesday. All those involved have refused to talk about the deal that appears to have sparked the fight.

Published: 4 January 2012 10:52 CET

Six arrests after suspected drug deal goes wrong

Photo: DPA

According to a report in Berlin’s B.Z. newspaper, one party was unhappy with a delivery, made in the relatively respectable district of Charlottenburg. After a shot was fired, all those involved sped off in four different cars.

Witnesses who called the police were able to note down the registration numbers of some of the cars, one of which was a conspicuous red BMW which the police were able to stop shortly afterwards. Its three occupants were arrested.

In the car, the police found packages of sugar, a substance often used to cut cocaine, but a test for the drug was negative. Police were not able to confirm speculation that the fight broke out over a drug deal.

The 38-year-old man who was injured by the shot drove himself to hospital, where he was also arrested. Two more men were arrested at the scene of the fight. Police are still looking for the gun.

“All the suspects refuse to talk about the causes of the fight,” a police spokesman said.

The Local/bk

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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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