Status: 12/20/2022 2:01 p.m
Investigators in Germany and the Netherlands have been searching apartments since the early morning. They are on the trail of hundreds of tons of illegal fireworks. There were several arrests.
Several arrests were made during a raid by German and Dutch investigators into the illegal trade in hundreds of tons of fireworks. The arrests were made by investigators in the Netherlands, said a police spokesman in Osnabrück. There were no arrests on the German side – the focus of the investigation is in the neighboring country.
Suspects were observed for a long time
The aim of the cross-border operation is to break up criminal networks in the fight against the trade in illegal and highly dangerous fireworks. Under the leadership of the Dutch investigators, several properties were searched in the neighboring country as well as in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. The raid is probably still ongoing. There are many police officers on duty.
The suspects had been observed for more than a year. They are said to have ordered firecrackers and firecrackers on a large scale in Asia. On the German side, there should have been depots and some sales outlets, especially in the border region. Sales were primarily made in the Netherlands and on online portals. It can be assumed that several hundred tons of fireworks would be confiscated, said the police spokesman.
Already in October eleven arrests
The searches are the investigators’ second strike against the scene in the region within a few months. Investigators had already arrested eleven suspects in the Netherlands in October. At that time, around 350 tons of illegal pyrotechnics worth around 25 million euros were confiscated during searches in the border region between Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia and the Netherlands. The current raid is not related to the suspects in the earlier proceedings, said a police spokesman for the dpa news agency.
According to the police, after two years of investigations, the earlier raid uncovered a Dutch criminal network that is said to have traded in illegal, highly dangerous fireworks. The illegal pyrotechnics confiscated at the time are said to have been transported from China to the Netherlands via several countries, including Germany.
According to the investigators, there are also indications that the highly explosive material is also used for other crimes – such as blowing up ATMs.