exclusive
A Frankfurt police informant who was murdered in 2022 was suspected of dealing large amounts of drugs. According to documents that NDR and WDR could evaluate, the Gießen public prosecutor’s office closed proceedings against him despite apparently incriminating evidence.
In the summer of 2020, investigators were apparently close on the trail of a group of drug dealers. They listened to her phone calls and secretly observed her. The suspicion: The men are smuggling cannabis, cocaine and ecstasy tablets in large quantities from Spain to Germany. But then came the unexpected turn.
In March 2021, an investigator from the Frankfurt police is said to have suggested stopping the investigation, among other things, because the “accused are using so-called ‘crypto cell phones’ to communicate with each other, which currently makes surveillance impossible.” This apparently convinced the Gießen public prosecutor’s office. She stopped the proceedings.
Data from crypto cell phones was available
But exactly the communication with “crypto cell phones” in question, namely numerous chat protocols, is said to be according to research by NDR and WDR had long been available to the Frankfurt officials at this point. The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) is said to have sent a so-called encrochat data set to the Frankfurt am Main police headquarters and the Gießen public prosecutor’s office in October 2020 to support the proceedings.
The decrypted chats, image files and phone calls are said to have shown how the accused in the Giessen investigation coordinated and organized their drug transport from Spain to Germany. According to the investigators, the drugs involved were between 50 and 300 kilograms per delivery and were worth several hundred thousand euros.
Informant used Encrochat
Aleksandar K. from Offenbach was among the accused in the Giessen trial. NDR and WDR had revealed that the Serb was working as an undercover agent for the Frankfurt police and was murdered in Marbella, southern Spain, in June 2022. The man was identified in the Encrochat data set through pictures and the license plate number of his truck.
He would have given the license plate number to a courier driver in Spain who was looking for the car. An officer from the Frankfurt am Main police headquarters was also involved in the identification. It was the policewoman who later apparently recommended that the proceedings against K. be stopped – with the indication that further surveillance was not technically possible. The officer is said to have previously coordinated the observations and telephone monitoring in the process.
police and Public prosecutor do not express themselves
In November 2021, the investigators resumed the proceedings against the informant and his accomplices under “full protection”. This refers to special confidentiality regulations. The reason for the resumption was a new delivery from the BKA. This time the officials from Wiesbaden sent data sets from so-called SkyECC cell phones. The informant is also said to have organized his drug deals with them. The proceedings were only stopped when the man was dead.
When asked why the proceedings had been stopped in the meantime, both the Frankfurt am Main police headquarters and the Gießen public prosecutor’s office did not want to comment. Not even when asked whether they wanted to protect the informant from prosecution first.
What role did his partner play?
NDR and WDR had revealed that the Frankfurt police informant was murdered at a holiday resort in Marbella in June 2022. The perpetrators have been on the run ever since. Aleksandar K. had apparently made many enemies in his drug dealings.
New research now shows: The informant’s ex-business partner, Frankfurt lawyer Benjamin D., who has since been convicted of drug trafficking, is said to have written about murder fantasies in the crypto chats. This is shown by investigative files NDR and WDR could see.
Accordingly, Benjamin D. and the undercover agent are said to have run a logistics company together to smuggle drugs into Germany. According to the chats that the lawyer is said to have written, the Serb is said to have owed the lawyer large sums of drug money. Benjamin D. apparently wrote that this money did not belong to him, but to other lawyers and their clients. He is said to have repeatedly asked the informant to give him the money.
In November 2020, the lawyer is said to have written to another dealer over an encrypted phone: “We’ll kill this guy together.” And further: “If he’s paid, I’ll get it.” Attorney Benjamin D. did not want to comment when asked. There is no evidence that he was involved in the crime. When asked, the Hanau public prosecutor’s office stated that they were not investigating D. for murder.
No clarification in the Hessian state parliament
Last Thursday, Hesse’s Interior Minister Peter Beuth was supposed to explain the case to the state parliament in Wiesbaden. At least that’s what the opposition had previously demanded.
But according to participants, the minister is said to have made evasive statements in both the public and confidential meetings of the Interior Committee. He simply referred to the guidelines for dealing with informants and the urgent need for secrecy. This must also be adhered to after the death of an informant.