77 properties of the Arabian extended family R. have provisionally confiscated the police and prosecutor in Berlin. The objects should have been bought with money from crime, as SPIEGEL TV had reported on Wednesday. Now the investigators have announced more details on the case.

The starting point of the current investigation was a slump in a savings bank in October 2014 in Berlin, said prosecutor Bernhard Mix. More than a hundred lockers were broken up at that time. The police took the perpetrators, the spoils of more than nine million euros but disappeared.

Then it was noticed that the brother of a perpetrator, who lived until then only by Hartz IV, various condos in Berlin and the surrounding area have bought, said Mix. Land was also purchased in 2015 (you can find out more about the case here).

DPA

Investigators Thorsten Cloidt, Jörg Raupach, Bernhard Mix

The investigators were therefore among other suspected money laundering suspects, evaluated accounts and took a look at land registers. Mix spoke of a "puzzle" and a "pagan work", always new names of suspects have emerged.

There are now 16 accused, many of whom have lived in Berlin for years, but some also in Lebanon. All suspects are assigned to the R. family and their surroundings. The now seized real estate should be apartments, houses and a small garden colony.

Among other things, the investigators bring the robbery of a 100-pound gold coin from the Bode Museum in contact with members of the family. The theft of the coin with a pure gold value of 3.7 million euros had attracted nationwide attention in March last year.

An "extraordinary intermediate result"

The police union welcomed the action of the Procuratorate and police. He was happy about this "extraordinary interim result," said the National Chairman Norbert Cioma.

In Germany, a new law has been in force for one year to reduce criminal profits. It allows provisional seizure and the confiscation of assets of unknown origin. Whether objects are permanently withdrawn, decide dishes.

The union leader said that now it will be seen whether the changes in the law are appropriate "to finally act effectively against the criminal machinations of Arab clans and to hit them where it really hurts them, in the money".

In video: Arab clans in Berlin (SPIEGEL TV magazine from 11.12.2016)

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MIRROR TV

Most recently, Interior Senator Andreas Geisel (SPD) said in December 2017, how difficult it is to penetrate into isolated clan structures. An increase in organized crime is seen as an increase in economic crime. Crude and violent incidents decline, but there are increasing attempts to convict criminal machinations in official business.

According to the definition of police and justice, organized crime includes money laundering, trafficking and corruption. The area is therefore determined by profit and power striving. Several offenders acted on schedule and in the long term division of labor. The aim is to influence politics, administration, justice or the economy.

Crime as the main source of income

In certain areas of Berlin, gangs, often of Arab origin, have divided streets among themselves. There are supposed to be between 12 and 20 partly criminal extended families in Berlin, part of which is at home in Neukölln. The problem is not limited to Berlin. Also in the Ruhr area, in Lower Saxony and in Bremen, the often widely branched clans are active.

Many members of these extended families - also of Palestinian or Lebanese origin - were not allowed to work in Germany because they were officially stateless and their residence status was unclear. Crime became a major source of income for some clans.

According to the Berlin police, last year 14 of the 68 major investigations into organized crime against gangs with members of Arab-Lebanese origin were directed. More than half of the suspects from these clans now have a German passport, said recently Dirk Jacob, responsible for organized gang crime at the Berlin LKA.