As of: February 29, 2024, 11:45 a.m
By: Bettina Menzel
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Daniela Klette was caught after a 30-year manhunt.
Journalists had already tracked down the 65-year-old last year.
Berlin - The police achieved a spectacular manhunt success on Monday evening (February 26th): 65-year-old former RAF terrorist Daniela Klette was arrested in front of her home in Berlin Kreuzberg after more than 30 years of manhunt.
But could she have been caught earlier?
A podcast from rbb, NDR and the company Undone discovered the person they were looking for in December 2023 - with the help of freely available facial recognition software and the support of a specialist.
That's why the podcast editors started looking for Daniela Klette
On Monday evening the handcuffs clicked for Daniela Klette, after more than 30 years in the underground.
She is said to have been involved in several robberies between 1999 and 2016.
But the journalists of the “Legion” podcast had apparently already gotten very close to the ex-RAF terrorist last year.
How the research even came about was thanks to an unusual tip: A listener contacted “Legion” and reported that an older woman at a hacker party in Cologne had claimed that she was Daniela Klette.
The journalists didn't know what to make of the tip, but began to investigate.
The listener had given them a picture of the alleged ex-terrorist.
The 65-year-old ex-RAF terrorist Daniela Klette was arrested here on February 26, 2024.
© IMAGO/Peter Meißner/Pemax
The “Legion” podcasters turned to the research collective Bellingcat, which specializes in open source intelligence (OSINT), among other things.
Bellingcat expert Michael Colborne used the publicly available facial recognition software PimEyes to compare the image provided by the listener with Klette's 30-year-old mugshots - with no result.
The woman from Cologne was not the ex-RAF terrorist.
Out of interest, Colborne then tried the opposite approach and had the software compare the mugshots with images from the Internet.
The Bellingcat expert told Spiegel that he didn't really expect to find anything, after all, he knew that there had been a manhunt for Burdock for
decades
.
Facial recognition software delivered RAF hits: Daniela Klette was tracked down in December 2023
The surprise: The facial recognition software found several images at once.
They all showed a woman who was active in a Berlin studio for Capoeira, a Brazilian dance and martial art.
Using other publicly available software, Colborne compared his results and received confirmation that it was most likely the same person.
And the effort? “The search took me no more than half an hour after work,” the Bellingcat expert continued.
The podcasters then visited the Capoeira studio and discovered photos of the woman living under the name “Claudia I.” on the walls.
Studio employees said she hasn't been training since the corona pandemic.
The journalists gave up their search.
Colborne had also almost forgotten about the matter until he found out about Klette's arrest in Berlin.
Because this week it became known: Daniela Klette had actually lived in Berlin under the false name “Claudia I.” with an Italian passport.
As Claudia I, Daniela Klette lived unnoticed in Berlin-Kreuzberg for 30 years.
© Annette Riedl/picture alliance/dpa
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Colborne admitted that he felt a little bit of satisfaction that he had apparently been the first to track down Klette.
On the other hand, he was also “disturbed” that a Canadian who doesn’t speak German was able to solve a case that had been unsolved for 30 years so quickly and using publicly available digital tools.
“I do ask myself why the German police and the German authorities were apparently unable to do this,” the Bellingcat researcher told
Spiegel
.
The specialist was not aware until the Spiegel
inquiry that a reward of 150,000 euros was being offered for information leading to the arrest
.
He'll take a look at it now, said Colborne, laughing.
Did the podcast have anything to do with the success of the police search?
“Decisive information from the population”
It is not yet known whether the podcasters' investigations ultimately led to Klette's discovery.
“We received crucial information from the public,” said the police.
The tip was received in November last year – before the podcast was published.
The recently broadcast program File Number XY, after which over 160 tips were received, did not lead to the trace of the former RAF terrorist, the police said.
But why did the woman she was looking for post pictures of herself so freely on the internet?
The podcasters suspected that at the time Klette was sharing the photos, it might not have been clear what Internet search options would open up with the help of artificial intelligence.
The fact that the 65-year-old was caught in Berlin Kreuzberg, of all places, also raised questions.
The Berlin district is known for its left-wing scene and connections to left-wing extremism.
The German Press Agency judged whether Klette lived in Kreuzberg because of a possible left-wing radical support scene or because the alternative neighborhood offered her more of a home than an anonymous high-rise development on the outskirts of the city.