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CRIME

Police struggle as cybercrime hits record

Cybercrime in Germany rose to a record level in 2013 to 64,500 cases, but only one in four crimes are solved and police unions believe as many as 90 percent of internet crimes go unreported.

Published: 3 June 2014 09:14 CEST
Police struggle as cybercrime hits record
Photo: DPA

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Police class cybercrime as computer fraud, computer sabotage and intercepting data. Computer sabotage was particularly rife in 2013 and German authorities are having a hard time keeping on top of the crime boom, the Welt reported on Tuesday. Only one in ten cases of computer sabotage are solved.

And cyber attacks by digital racketeers are also becoming increasingly frequent. Crimes are reported but seldom lead to a successful conclusion, according to the latest Crime Statistics report, which Interior Minister Thomas de Mazière will present in Berlin on Wednesday.

Investigators counted about 64,500 cases of internet crime nationwide last year, an increase of 0.7 percent on 2012. In 2013, only every fourth case was solved.

And police unions said many cyber crimes went unreported. Rainer Wendt, head of German police union DPolG, told Welt: “For some people, the shame of their own stupidity and greed is the driving motive of silence."

And André Schulz, the chairman of the police union BDK, estimated the number of unreported cases at 90 percent .

"The perpetrators often sit abroad. Their crimes are therefore not statistically recorded in Germany,” he said. "In many departments the investigators still have no or a very slow internet connection."

SEE ALSO: Police blame gangs for burglary rise

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CRIME

Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

A 17-year-old has turned himself in to police in Germany after an attack on a lawmaker that the country's leaders decried as a threat to democracy.

Published: 5 May 2024 12:52 CEST
Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

The teenager reported to police in the eastern city of Dresden early Sunday morning and said he was “the perpetrator who had knocked down the SPD politician”, police said in a statement.

Matthias Ecke, 41, European parliament lawmaker for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), was set upon by four attackers as he put up EU election posters in Dresden on Friday night, according to police.

Ecke was “seriously injured” and required an operation after the attack, his party said.

Scholz on Saturday condemned the attack as a threat to democracy.

“We must never accept such acts of violence,” he said.

Ecke, who is head of the SPD’s European election list in the Saxony region, was just the latest political target to be attacked in Germany.

Police said a 28-year-old man putting up posters for the Greens had been “punched” and “kicked” earlier in the evening on the same Dresden street.

Last week two Greens deputies were abused while campaigning in Essen in western Germany and another was surrounded by dozens of demonstrators in her car in the east of the country.

According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed against politicians in Germany in 2023, up from 1,806 the previous year, but less than the 2,840 recorded in 2021, when legislative elections took place.

A group of activists against the far right has called for demonstrations against the attack on Ecke in Dresden and Berlin on Sunday, Der Spiegel magazine said.

According to the Tagesspiegel newspaper, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser is planning to call a special conference with Germany’s regional interior ministers next week to address violence against politicians.

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