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Recently the special commission “Clan” made it clear to the Essen police with a spectacular mission that they will be needed for a long time.
On December 5, a large contingent of officials from the Hundred prevented a meeting between two warring clans who had apparently arranged to meet for an arbitration meeting.
The scene had provided occasions over and over again in the past few weeks.
It was about brawls on the street, a search warrant for collective robbery was carried out with the help of special units, before that there was a raid on several buildings in the city area with provisional arrests.
The operations show that clan crime is a lasting problem, that it is a fight against solidified structures.
But, viewed differently, it is the successes of this special commission, known in the technical jargon as “Special Structural Organization - BAO Action Plan Clan”, which has been dedicated to this area for two years.
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“Something has changed.
It looks like our tactic is working.
We are on the right track with the BAO Clan ”, says the Essen police chief Frank Richter WELT.
Before the establishment of the BAO, there were so-called tumults almost every month, then dozens of people would gather out of nowhere when, for example, police officers recorded a traffic accident.
The officers were hindered and threatened in their work.
There were citizens' complaints because tuned-up PS machines were parked in the second and third rows.
“The clan members wanted to document externally that the 'street' belongs to us,” says Richter.
"The scene is very insecure"
The police are now registering greater reluctance.
The BAO leader, who for security reasons does not want to be mentioned by name, attributes this to the intensive missions.
“The scene is very unsettled, which is expressed in less turmoil.
The number of complaints from citizens has decreased significantly.
Crime in public places is on the decline and the feeling of security has improved significantly. "
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The clans even behaved more cooperatively when it comes to the course of funerals.
“We are not so naive as to believe that crime will no longer be committed.
The criminal clan members have changed their strategy.
They have become much more cautious.
A massive police presence will be necessary for a long time to come, ”says the BAO director.
Around 15,000 members of Turkish-Arab family clans live in Essen alone, the majority of whom are said to be so-called Mhallamiye Kurds.
They have their roots in southeastern Turkey and fled to Germany during the civil war in Lebanon between 1975 and 1990.
According to the police, only a small minority of the 15,000 people, around 600 people, are criminals and are responsible for an average of 800 crimes per year.
It is about drug deals, money laundering, gambling, social benefits and tax fraud, illegal gun possession, serious assault, territorial domination and defamation.
“Our police measures are only directed against the criminal part of the clan families.
The majority of the families remain unaffected by our actions, ”said the BAO director.
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As the second largest city in the Ruhr area, Essen is a clan hotspot, similar to Berlin and Bremen.
The structure in NRW is much more complex, as a situation report from the State Criminal Police Office shows.
When the overview was presented in May 2019, the investigators had initially identified 104 family clans nationwide.
There are now 111 who live mainly in the metropolitan area of the Ruhr area, but have also moved to neighboring, sparsely populated regions.
The problems with criminal clan structures have been known for a number of years.
There were early isolated efforts by police authorities, for example in Essen and Duisburg, to take action against this.
It was only after the change of government in 2017 that the black and yellow state government made it a state-wide focus after North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) had issued a "zero tolerance strategy".
During the major raid in August, North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU, 2nd from left) speaks to police officers in Duisburg
Source: pa / dpa / Christoph Reichwein
The concentration of the State Criminal Police Office on surnames was helpful in reconstructing structures and creating a comprehensive overview, even if this harbors the risk of stigmatization.
In the case of clan crime, “the common family or ethnic origin is consciously included in the commission as a connecting component that promotes the commission of the offense or hinders the investigation”, as the North Rhine-Westphalia Ministry of the Interior describes it.
"We get to know their rules of the game"
That such an approach is politically vulnerable was felt by the police in autumn when an internal clan brochure became known during a nationwide controversy over allegations of racism among the police, especially in Essen.
The Essen police then made the brochure public in order to demonstrate that they believed the content was unproblematic.
Among other things, it says: "A constant demarcation between clan members who appear criminally and those who are not must be dispensed with at this point." Basic thought patterns are often anchored in family members who are not criminally suspicious, because even if individual family members are aware of the crime, they remain silent.
On the other hand, attention is paid to differentiation in the brochure: It goes without saying that all considerations and measures set out here relate to criminal clan members and do not constitute a guide in the sense of ethnic profiling.
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Police chief Richter cannot understand criticism of the content.
He emphasizes that the brochure is scientifically developed and should be of assistance during operations.
"As the police, we concentrate solely on the criminal part of the clan members and thus learn their rules of the game and get to know their culture," emphasizes Richter.
The BAO Clan is in constant contact with colleagues from Berlin, Bremen and also the Swedish police, where the clan problem is much more dramatic.
Clan expert: "It's getting worse and worse"
Several people were injured in an exchange of fire in the middle of Berlin.
The homicide squad is investigating.
There is still no more detailed information about the background, but there are many indications of clan crime.
Source: WELT / Angela Knäble
Richter points out that there has been a lack of sufficient consistency in politics in recent years because there have long been fears that such an approach could be understood as racism.
"But the task of the police is to ward off dangers and prosecute crimes," explains Richter.
It is also about a small-scale approach that NRW Interior Minister Reul coined as the "strategy of 1000 pinpricks".
According to the BAO, it controls 300 properties, 275 of which have no reference to clan names.
There are around 200 missions a year with hundreds.
This includes regular raids on shisha bars in Essen, some of which are used as retreats for criminals and for money laundering.
Sometimes only a few kilos of untaxed tobacco are confiscated.
The police want to make life as uncomfortable as possible for the clans in Essen
Source: pa / dpa / Caroline Seidel
Police chief Richter emphasizes that these small successes are also important.
“We have to stay present and make it clear that we won't let minor offenses get away with.
Some successes are more spectacular than they first appear, ”says Richter.
In one case, for example, the city administration found that 82 people in a house had given incorrect addresses and received Hartz IV benefits without justification.
This resulted in damage of around 50,000 euros per month.
“That is socially harmful behavior.
We cannot allow such looting of the social systems. "
New turf wars between criminal gangs
An essential principle in the fight against clan crime is the networking of different authorities.
In the opinion of Police President Richter, it is expedient and decisive when the most diverse departments work together and push the desks together.
"The police are now working closely with the public prosecutor, the tax offices, customs and local authorities."
There are many different offenses, criminal offenses, tax offenses, social fraud.
According to Richter, it would be much easier to work together if data could be exchanged more easily.
"When fighting against clans, it becomes clear that data protection is also the protection of perpetrators."
In North Rhine-Westphalia, the police are observing that the clan problem is becoming more complicated.
The LKA warned early on that new extended families of Iraqi and Syrian origin wanted to compete with the existing Turkish-Lebanese scene.
Corresponding clashes apparently broke out in Essen in November.
In Berlin, the security authorities register that Chechen groups are entering the criminal turf.
Essen's chief of police, Richter, warns against viewing clan crime as a temporary phenomenon: “Anyone who believes that such structures that have been entrenched over the years can be eliminated in a short time is mistaken.
We'll need staying power. "