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Police and the Dresden prosecutor’s office searched several apartments in Berlin on Tuesday morning about a year after the theft of the Green Vault jewel and arrested suspects from the Remmo clan: Rammo in another spelling.
A total of three urgent suspects, two 23 and one 26, were arrested, he said. According to a spokesperson, they are German citizens. According to Tagesspiegel’s information from security circles, they should all be members of the extended German-Arab family. An arrest warrant was issued around 2 p.m. Tuesday. The third will be brought before the judge.
In addition, two other suspects from the clan are being sought on an arrest warrant. The Dresden Public Prosecutor’s Office has published a search notice. We are looking for two 21-year-old members of the well-known clan. “The persecution is international,” a spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office said Tuesday afternoon in Dresden.
The prosecution charges the five suspects with theft and arson. Arrest warrants were issued for two of the three detainees, a spokesman for the Dresden prosecutor’s office said Tuesday afternoon. The third detainee is still currently before the judge.
More than 1,600 officers are deployed in the large-scale raid. Police said there would be significant traffic restrictions throughout the city throughout the day. The focus of the operation is in the Neukölln district, but Kreuzberg was also affected. We also searched Charlottenburg, Treptow and Reinickendorf.
In addition to the emergency services from Saxony, special forces from the federal government and the states of Baden-Württemberg, Berlin, Brandenburg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia also arrived early Tuesday morning.
Police searched a total of 18 objects since early morning, including 10 apartments, as well as garages and vehicles. Investigators hope the raid will help them find traces of the stolen art treasures, and evidence such as storage media, clothing and tools are also being sought. Storage technology and other clothing are already insured, said the prosecutor’s spokesman in Dresden. At least two police helicopters flew over Neukölln and Kreuzberg.
[Mehr zum Thema: Organisierte Kriminalität unter Druck – warum den Clans das Geld ausgeht (T+)]
One of the suspected clan members was convicted in February of stealing the gold coin from the Bode Museum. Initially, the 23-year-old had appealed. The district court had sentenced him and his cousin to four and a half years in prison for joint robbery. At the end of September, he withdrew the appeal, making the sentence enforceable.
In addition, he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison in Erlangen in 2019. He had stolen spreader tools from a specialized company, tools that had been used when they entered the Green Vault.
Gitschiner Strasse in Kreuzberg was also closed on Tuesday morning. At least six policemen always patrolled the entrance to an apartment building where one of the suspects was arrested. Several officers in helmets and protective gear also guarded the balcony of the searched apartment.
The stolen jewelery has been put up for sale in Israel
In between, heavily armed forces marched onto the property with raised rifles, but abandoned it a few minutes later. The mission went smoothly. Dresden police assume the search will continue until noon, as a local spokesman said. He was unable to provide any information on the findings in the apartment before the searches were completed.
Soko “Epaulette” investigators found the clan members through fingerprints at the crime scene and security camera recordings. They could be identified through the images. They could also be assigned a vehicle that is said to have been used to prepare for the day.
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Some of the pieces of jewelry stolen from the Green Vault were offered for sale in Israel for millions. The Israeli security company CGI, which is in charge of investigating the case, made it public in early 2020.
Consequently, the company was offered two sets of diamonds via the Darknet, for nine million euros in bitcoins. The pieces of jewelry offered were the Saxon white diamonds and the order of the Polish white eagle.
Berlin Interior Senator Andreas Geisel (SPD) said that the Berlin police had supported investigators in Dresden “from the beginning with their expertise.” “We are happy to have managed to solve an art theft.”
Due to the references to the clan crime, it is clear: “This is another cue for the scene. No one should believe that they can override this state and its rules, ”Geisel said. The rule of law is the measure of all things: “He alone enforces order. He does it with more determination and intelligence than many criminals believe. “
Neukölln District Mayor Martin Hikel (SPD) also regards arrests and searches related to art theft in Dresden as a success in the fight against clan crime. “Today there is one more proof that our strategy is working,” Hikel wrote on Facebook on Tuesday. “That is encouraging.”
It is precisely the “close and trusting” cooperation between various authorities that shows that the State is better organized than organized crime. According to him, that is the central idea of Berlin’s five-point plan against clan crime: “We will continue to need staying power. Because we do not defend the rule of law with actionism and populism, but with an orderly approach to the rule of law ”. Berlin’s Neukölln district is a focal point for clan crime.
Police Union (GdP) Country Head Norbert Cioma said: “Today’s large-scale operation has been prepared incredibly professionally and very meticulously.” .
In one of the most spectacular raids in decades, strangers stole valuable art treasures from the famous Grünes Gewölbe treasure chamber in Dresden on November 25, 2019. The perpetrators had entered the museum through a barred window.
They partially cut the bars, removed the windows and frames, and penetrated the baroque treasure. There they stole diamonds and brilliant-cut diamonds worth several hundred million euros from display cases that had been destroyed with an ax.
After the crime, police released a surveillance camera image of the perpetrators’ first getaway vehicle, which was parked and set on fire in an underground parking lot shortly after the robbery. It shows a shiny Audi A6 with a dark roof.
Parallel to the theft of the gold coin at the Bode Museum
The perpetrators are said to have used a hydraulic spreader tool to break into the Green Vault. Therefore, researchers also assume parallels with the theft of the 100 kilogram Big Maple Leaf gold coin, worth 3.75 million euros, from the Bode Museum in Berlin in March 2017. There were also parallels with the attack on a money transporter at Alexanderplatz in 2018.
In Berlin, at least five of these devices, each worth 10,000 euros, had been stolen from the fire department since 2017. The fire brigade uses battery-operated hydraulic spreaders to open the doors of stalling cars after accidents. And precisely such a special tool, which is used by firefighters, was apparently used in the spectacular jewel theft from the Green Vault in Dresden.
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In addition to the museum theft target and the possible use of a hydraulic spreader, there is a third parallel to the actions of members of the criminal clan. The smashing of the safety glass case with brutal ax blows is reminiscent of a robbery in Berlin’s luxury department store KaDeWe in 2014. Back then, too, masked perpetrators quickly destroyed showcases with an ax, collected jewelry and watches and they fled with a waiting car.
Soko of 40 men had investigated
Several young men from large families of Arab origin were sentenced. Special tools were also used when the “Goldnest” artwork was stolen from the Fuchsberg primary school in Marzahn-Hellersdorf in May. The Remmo clan was also suspected here. A few days earlier, the Treptow-Köpenick fire brigade had stolen special equipment, including cutting grinders and chainsaws.
Soko “Epaulette” of 40 people had investigated the Green Vault theft with great pressure. Investigators assume that the intruders intensively prepared for their crime and most likely spied on the subsequent crime scene as well.
In mid-September 2020, the researchers registered several companies in Neukölln. Business data and documents have been protected at various production sites where vehicles are wrapped in film.
It is about the suspicion that the exterior of the getaway car used by the perpetrators for the coup was altered and later set on fire. Based on prior knowledge, the investigators assume that the contractors did not know the purpose.
In early September, the police came to search an internet café in Neukölln and an employee’s apartment there. The Soko “Epaulette” researchers found what they were looking for. Investigators assume the man was in contact with the perpetrators. It is said that he registered them SIM cards with fictitious personal data for mobile phones. Investigators had confiscated business documents, cell phones, and storage materials.
Criminal members of the extended Remmo family have already been noted with various serious crimes. The Remmos became known because relatives are said to have killed a man in Britz in 2017 (for which the defendant was acquitted). Two cousins have been convicted of stealing the gold coin from the Bode Museum, one of which is now final. Earlier, a family member blew up a savings bank.
Members of the extended family have tried it for the past several years. Invest money in Neukölln. After years of investigations by the Berlin State Criminal Police Office, exactly 77 properties attributed to the family were confiscated on suspicion of money laundering in the summer of 2018.
In April 2019, income from the rental of 45 properties was also seized. The 77 houses and apartments seized are said to have been purchased with crime money. There should have been cash deposits from Lebanon and transfers.
In several cases, the Court of Appeal has already confirmed that the property has been secured in second instance. Currently, two properties officially belong to the state of Berlin, including one property listed in Alt-Buckow, in which the clan chief had partly resided. (with dpa)
