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Berlin bank hostage drama ends peacefully

A hostage drama in a Berlin bank branch ended peacefully early Saturday with the release of an employee and the arrest of his assailant, police said.

Published: 21 December 2012 21:28 CET
Updated: 22 December 2012 12:39 CET

Berlin bank hostage drama ends peacefully

Photo: DPA

The hostage-taker, a German man aged around 20, had originally demanded €1 million and a safe getaway, according to the Bild newspaper website.

However after several hours of negotiations he agreed to release the bank employee, police said.

Police then entered the Deutsche Bank branch in southwest Berlin’s Zehlendorf district, and arrested the suspect who put up no resistance.

The unidentified assailant had taken the bank employee hostage in the German capital on Friday afternoon just before the branch was due to close for the day.

Around 20 other employees were inside the bank at the time and managed to get to an upper floor where they were not seen by the hostage-taker. They were able to escape swiftly through a side door.

The hostage drama ended hours later, shortly after one in the morning on Saturday.

Some reports said the man claimed to have explosives in a case, but police did not confirm or deny that information.

The freed hostage was safe and well and would be given psychological support, the police spokesman said. Deutsche Bank is Germany’s biggest lender.

AFP/The Local/mw

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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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