19 and 30 year olds in focus
Investigators have two suspects after a series of threats
November 20, 2023, 1:18 p.m
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In the past few weeks, authorities nationwide have received more than 250 threatening letters. They are directed against schools and public institutions. In dozens of cases this results in major police operations. Investigators are now on the trail of two men. It is still unclear whether they acted alone.
After a nationwide series of bomb threats, two suspects have been identified. A 30-year-old and a 19-year-old are said to belong to a group that attracted attention with crimes such as false emergency calls, as the Baden-Württemberg State Criminal Police Office and the Stuttgart public prosecutor’s office announced on Monday. In the threatening emails, the perpetrators posed as either opponents or members of the radical Islamic Hamas or the jihadist militia Islamic State (IS).
They threatened to kill many innocent people. Because of the more than 250 threats against schools and universities, media, embassies, authorities, religious institutions and companies, the police have been deployed more than 30 times in the past few weeks, and there have often been evacuations. Schools, for example, but also Hamburg Airport were affected.
The Federal Criminal Police Office coordinated the investigative approaches from the federal states, it said. There were increasing signs that a possible suspect came from Baden-Württemberg. That is why the State Criminal Police Office there took over the police investigation on behalf of the Stuttgart public prosecutor’s office. These would have led to the 19-year-old and the 30-year-old.
Many data carriers secured
The 19-year-old comes from the Hohenlohe district in Baden-Württemberg. According to the current status of the investigation, he is accused of involvement in four bomb threats. The 30-year-old from the Minden-Lübbecke district in North Rhine-Westphalia is said to have been involved in 29 threats.
According to the information, two apartments in the two federal states were searched on Friday and evidence was confiscated. The computers, hard drives and cell phones should now be evaluated. The investigation into possible additional group members was ongoing. The group is said to have committed crimes on the Internet and, among other things, deliberately triggered false emergency calls in order to provoke police or fire service operations.
The aim of the bomb threats sent by email was to cause complex police operations and to shake the public’s sense of security, the investigators said. Larger sections of the population should have been significantly alarmed. In addition, the perpetrators wanted to achieve as much media attention as possible.
According to investigators, bomb threats can result in severe penalties. Such threatening emails could result in a fine or a prison sentence of up to three years, it said. This also applies to false bomb threats. In addition, the costs of police operations and claims for damages from affected companies and institutions could be billed to the perpetrators.