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Police break up armed gang of people smugglers in northern Hesse

2022-09-13T07:20:48.902Z


Federal police officers search apartments in Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria. The suspects are said to have smuggled Syrians to Germany - possibly also members of the terrorist organization IS.


Enlarge image

Access by GSG9 special forces in Korbach

Photo: Lars Berg / DER SPIEGEL

The illegal entry into Germany was organized professionally: at least one car drove ahead as a "reconnaissance officer" to warn of police checks.

According to the investigations, a rented van followed at a safe distance, with mainly Syrian immigrants in the hold.

The smugglers are said to have collected between 600 and 2,000 euros for a passage across the German border.

That is the allegation of the Kassel public prosecutor's office.

Since the morning hours, more than 400 federal police officers have been searching 20 apartments that are attributed to members and helpers of a gang of smugglers in North Hesse.

The focus of the action is in the cities of Korbach and Frankenberg, where six arrest warrants were executed by special forces from the GSG 9 elite unit.

According to the investigation, at least three of the suspects may have been armed.

The accusation: "gang and commercial smuggling of foreigners."

Raids also took place in North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria at the same time.

Testimony alerts the "Joint Counter-Terrorism Center"

According to SPIEGEL research, the trigger for the investigation was a tip-off from the former partner of one of the main suspects.

The witness reported to the police in October 2021 in an extensive interrogation about her ex-boyfriend, a 28-year-old Syrian from Korbach.

The witness said he brought Syrian compatriots from Austria to Germany in rented cars.

Human smugglers are also said to have picked up passengers willing to pay in Hungary and Serbia.

The smugglers' customers: predominantly young Syrian men.

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Arrested alleged smuggler

Photo: Lars Berg / DER SPIEGEL

Part of this testimony also alarmed the "Joint Counter-Terrorism Center" (GTAZ) in Berlin, where representatives of more than 40 police and intelligence agencies are sitting together.

The smuggling network, the ex-girlfriend claimed, also smuggled members of the terrorist organization "Islamic State" (IS) into the country.

more on the subject

Terror suspects in Germany: public enemy no. 1 to 602

The witness gave number plates and names and pointed to a transport from Austria that was just on the way.

The public prosecutor's office in Kassel commissioned the Federal Police Inspectorate for Combating Crime in Frankfurt am Main with the case.

However, a search for the vehicle was unsuccessful.

Young Syrian men taken to a safe house in Korbach

The investigators still believed the witness to be credible, had cars wired and phones monitored.

Just a few days later, the first success story came: near Munich, the police checked a black van that came from Austria and was traveling with eleven Syrian refugees.

Access was not easy.

The driver tried to outrun the patrol car and dumped his passengers on the street as they fled.

He couldn't escape.

The police also arrested a woman and eight Syrian men on that day in November 2021.

Two of the refugees remained missing.

During the investigations that followed, the investigators from the Frankfurt federal police came across a network of smugglers who smuggled people across the border into Germany and brought them to a so-called safe house in Korbach.

It was a nondescript apartment in a nondescript block of flats.

It was run by a 24-year-old Syrian who is one of the main suspects in the case

.

In most cases, Germany was probably only a stopover.

From Korbach, the smugglers later brought people to France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Overall, the gang is said to be responsible for 147 illegal entries and collected 177,000 euros for it.

The witness whose testimony triggered the investigation is now suspected of being involved in her ex-boyfriend's business.

She is said to have conducted a tour with refugees from the Polish-Belarusian border to Germany.

A car rental company became suspicious and went to the police because the delivery truck was full of garbage and smelled bad when it was returned.

He checked the GPS data of the van, which had allegedly been rented for a move, and came across the unusual tour to Belarus.

Prime suspect kidnapped to Kassel

According to SPIEGEL research, the investigators also found in wiretapped conversations that three of the suspects were handling weapons.

A 22-year-old Iranian from Korbach

is said to have obtained a pistol, a machete and a knife and smuggled 15 kilograms of marijuana to Germany.

The reference to IS connections was not initially confirmed.

The police took the personal details of the smuggled Syrians and used their fingerprints to look for possible IS references.

none.

At the beginning of February this year, according to SPIEGEL information, the suspicion of terrorism received new fuel: the main suspect disappeared from Korbach.

His cell phone was switched off and there was dead silence on all channels.

After two days he reappeared.

In an overheard conversation, he told a friend that he had been kidnapped, first to a mosque in Kassel and then to an unknown house.

Did radical Islamists actually have him in their power?

In the car, he now frequently intoned IS battle songs.

However, there was no evidence that the smuggler from Korbach actually had contact with IS fighters.

The investigations are ongoing.

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2022-09-13

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