crime
Major raid against Al-Zein clan – more than 50 suspects
Police officers break into a house as part of a large-scale raid. photo
© Gianni Gattus/dpa
The Al-Zein clan keeps making headlines – now the police are visiting them again: It’s about missing cars and suspected fraud with Corona aid.
The police have been conducting a major raid against members of the Al-Zein clan since early Wednesday morning. According to dpa information, more than 50 suspects are accused, among other things, of embezzling numerous cars and fraud with corona aid. Several arrest warrants are to be executed. Hundreds of officers are on duty.
According to dpa information, the focus of the searches is North Rhine-Westphalia. There are raids in Solingen, Dortmund and Bochum, among other places. Cities in other federal states are also affected, including Berlin, Lower Saxony and Hesse.
Fraud with Corona emergency aid
Investigators said that leased cars were embezzled and sold with new license plates. A second investigation complex is about fraud with Corona emergency aid. Both methods seem to overlap. The responsibility lies with the State Criminal Police Office (LKA) North Rhine-Westphalia.
The Al-Zein clan always makes headlines. Relatives are currently on trial in Düsseldorf whose villa in Leverkusen is said to have been paid for with money from the job center. A few days ago, the prosecutor had demanded a six-year prison sentence for the clan boss. The verdicts are to be spoken on December 22nd.
The police in North Rhine-Westphalia have been taking targeted action against criminal Turkish-Arab family clans for several years. According to the State Criminal Police Office, the main area of activity for clan criminals is the Ruhr area. According to the “Clan Crime Situational Report” in 2021, most crimes were recorded in Essen, followed by Recklinghausen, Gelsenkirchen, Duisburg and Bochum. Since the start of the offensive against criminal clans in July 2018, more than 5,000 objects have been checked in more than 2,000 raids and 3,200 criminal charges have been filed, it said when the situation report was presented in April.
The police use the term clan crime to describe “crime that develops from ethnically isolated subcultures”. In 2021, according to the situation report, statistically recorded clan crime in Germany’s largest federal state declined slightly. The number of crimes recorded by criminal clan members fell by 5.8 percent to 5,460. At the same time, the volume of confiscated assets more than doubled from almost four to over ten million euros. Every fifth investigation into organized crime in 2021 had clan references.