crime
Organized crime: trend towards large criminal gangs
Police officers are on duty in downtown Duisburg. photo
© Christoph Reichwein/dpa
According to police findings, criminal gangs are forming ever larger groups. One nationality dominates by far when it comes to organized crime: German.
According to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), OK groups are increasingly resorting to sometimes drastic measures to demonstrate power and exert influence, for example by intimidating witnesses or collecting supposed debts with violence.
According to the report, two thirds of the groups that the police became aware of last year consisted of up to ten suspects. More than one in four cases (27.5 percent) involved gangs with 11 to 50 suspects. In 2.7 percent of cases, more than 50 suspected members could be attributed to a group.
The number of procedures is increasing
The total number of cases against organized crime groups increased significantly in 2021 due to investigations resulting from the decryption of chats on crypto phones. In 2022 it fell by 8.2 percent to 639 procedures, but was still well above the level from 2013 to 2020. The police in the Netherlands and France cracked the EncroChat software in 2020 and then used millions of secret chats. Messages siphoned off by criminals.
According to the report, the criminal proceeds from cybercrime activities increased significantly last year compared to the previous year – they rose from around 18 million euros to more than 252 million euros. This is mainly due to four very large procedures, it said. The increase in drug trafficking and smuggling was smaller. The amount of damage determined for tax and customs offenses fell slightly.
By far most of the OK groups last year were dominated by people with German citizenship. According to the situation report, Turks made up the second largest group, followed by people from Albania, Poland and Italy.