On Tuesday morning, around 1,000 officials from the Frankfurt am Main Police Presidium, the Frankfurt Tax Investigation Office, and the Rosenheim Main Customs Office acted in a joint operation against organized crime, carrying out tasks commissioned by the public prosecutor’s office. The authorities reported that searches were conducted across 82 residential and business premises in Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Rhineland-Palatinate. As part of these measures, the authorities also executed asset freezes totaling approximately 6.3 million euros and served five arrest warrants.
The investigations, which spanned over a year, targeted a criminal association involved in what is termed “Crime-as-a-Service.” Among the 53 accused, ten individuals are suspected of operating a shadow banking system to transfer hundreds of millions of euros out of Europe, primarily to China, while simultaneously laundering illicit funds. Furthermore, they allegedly aided illegal labor by creating “cover invoices” and stole 41 motor vehicles, valued at about 1.85 million euros, through shell companies.
One of the principal suspects is also accused of aiding the trade of substantial amounts of narcotics through the financing of logistics services. The five primary suspects who were arrested are between 25 and 51 years old. Their nationalities include Turkish in three cases, and Turkish and German in one case, as well as Afghan and German in one case.
