The state made it very easy for fraudsters to pay out billions in corona aid. Neither the need nor the existence of companies were controlled. Even religious extremists took advantage of this.
Berlin (dpa / lsw) – With a major raid in several federal states, the police took action against a suspected fraudster and his accomplices in connection with corona aid. According to the police, the 25-year-old suspect is an Islamist who is said to have obtained more than one million euros in funding through straw people. The police searched 57 apartments and other rooms of the suspect’s accomplices in Berlin, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Brandenburg, North Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony on Tuesday morning, according to the public prosecutor’s office. The suspect is said to be back in Syria.
The police accuse the man of having applied for corona aid with fabricated information about companies. He is said to have received more than one million euros from the Investment Bank Berlin (IBB). He is said to have used the names and tax data of the straw people. The straw people also made their accounts available to him for the payments. The suspect is said to have set up the necessary email addresses for the accomplices specifically for this purpose.
The man has been investigated several times in the past for disturbing the public peace, as the public prosecutor announced. For example, he is said to have publicly burned masks with the face of French President Emmanuel Macron and published videos of them on the Internet. This happened shortly after Macron gave a speech following the beheading of a French teacher by an Islamist assassin.
The investigations and the evaluation of the confiscated mobile phones and computers are ongoing. The department responsible for Islamism at the Berlin State Criminal Police Office (LKA) is also involved. The focus of the operations is Berlin, said a police spokesman. Among other things, there was a search in Wedding.
The Berlin police union (GdP) said: “As an international metropolis, the capital is of course also the focus of terrorist networks. It is all the more important to take a close look when it comes to financial flows within extremist structures.”