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Police arrest final Berlin fatal beating suspect

Half a year after a 20-year-old man was brutally beaten to death in central Berlin, the last of six main suspects was arrested on Monday after returning to Germany from Turkey.

Published: 8 April 2013 17:29 CEST

Police arrest final Berlin fatal beating suspect

Photo: DPA

Nineteen-year-old Onur U. was arrested shortly after landing at the German capital’s Tegel Airport on Monday, the city’s justice authorities confirmed. He was expected to appear before court later the same day.”

He is thought to have instigated the fatal attack against Jonny K. at the Alexanderplatz square late at night on October 14th last year. Five others will also face charges of grievous bodily harm when the case opens in May.

The teen fled Germany to Turkey after the attack, prompting Chancellor Angela Merkel on her February visit to push for the Turkish government to extradite him. At the beginning of April, they opened an investigation into the alleged murder.

He apparently decided to come back himself after being put under enormous pressure to do so. If he were to be tried in Turkey, he would have likely faced harsher punishment.

DPA/The Local/jcw

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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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