Germany: Police raids target organized crime

Tactical German police units searched about 30 buildings and executed arrest warrants across the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and in the capital Berlin on Tuesday, according to police.

Officials said they had arrested one of the leading members of a German-Lebanese family organized crime operation.

Investigators raided homes, offices and stores, confiscating possessions and also making arrests in connection with organized crime and illegal gambling. 

Where did the raids occur?

Police in NRW carried out raids in the cities of Duisburg, Leverkusen and Gelsenkirchen. 

A 46-year-old suspect arrested at his villa in Leverkusen, along with his wife and two adult sons, was described as a clan leader.

"This, today, is a blow against the top league of clan crime in North Rhine-Westphalia" said NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul.

The raids were ordered by the public prosecutor's office in Düsseldorf, NRW's capital, as part of an ongoing investigation into clan criminality and money laundering, prosecutors said. 

Among those being targeted are the groups referred to in German media and by police as "clans," which define themselves by their family ties and a shared ethnic identity.

The arrested suspects were accused of gang fraud, social welfare fraud, money laundering and racketeering, state criminal police said.

Bogus benefit claims over years

In addition, there was suspicion that the clan members had "over years wrongfully received social benefits in six figures."

"They basically tried to pretend that they were downright penniless," said head of operations Heike Schultz.

Criminally acquired assets had been invested in part by the family members in legal businesses such as barbershops, she said. In total, more than 30 suspects have been under investigation for two years.

The raids were reportedly part of the targeting of organized crime among Turkish and Arab extended families.

Reul, of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrat Union (CDU) party, has made the issue of organized crime a priority during his time in office. 

The Bild newspaper earlier in the day reported that the head of the Al-Zein gang, who is known as the "godfather of Berlin," had been arrested.

It was unclear if the raids were in connection with a massive international law enforcement operation unveiled on Tuesday targeting organized crime around the world.

More than 70 people were arrested across Germany as of Tuesday, with more than 60 arrests having taken place in the western German state of Hesse as part of the Operation Trojan Shield operation.

In a separate operation in Berlin, a hotel was searched by 300 police in the Charlottenburg district in the western part of the city.

Police said they searched all 160 rooms on 10 floors on suspicions of illegal gambling.

ar,rc/wmr (AP, AFP, dpa)