Icon: enlarge
Police forces in Cologne (symbol picture)
Photo: Oliver Berg / dpa
In the investigation against police officers from North Rhine-Westphalia, who are said to have exchanged messages from right-wing extremists, the police initiated a mass query.
At the request of SPIEGEL, the NRW Ministry of the Interior confirmed that 12,750 telephone numbers had been checked.
The SWR had previously reported on it.
In the past year, several Whatsapp groups were exposed at the police in Mülheim / Ruhr, in which right-wing extremist and racist content was exchanged.
The investigations were at times directed against 30 police officers.
According to media reports, the responsible investigators of the "Janus" unit had sent the query to the state offices for the protection of the constitution, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), the state criminal police offices (LKA), customs and police headquarters.
The addressees should check by last Sunday whether they have one of the numbers in their systems.
The investigators were interested in whether the owners of the numbers have ever turned up in connection with right-wing crimes.
Quite a few "innocent and innocent"
According to the SWR, there are quite a few "innocent and innocent people" among the requested numbers.
The results of the large query are unknown.
A spokesman for the NRW Interior Ministry told SPIEGEL that they had requested a report from the LKA on whether the measure was technically justified.
In the past, police officers with openly right-wing extremist attitudes were repeatedly noticed.
When the chat groups were exposed, Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) spoke of a “shame for the NRW police”.
Other countries are also affected: the Frankfurt public prosecutor announced a few days ago that it had indicted four active and former officials.
Icon: The mirror
jpz / dpa