‘Clans, corruption, drugs’ — German documentary reveals clan crime gangs have bribed police and infiltrated state authorities across the country

Criminal organizations, drug trafficking, money laundering and corruption – a new documentary by German public broadcaster ZDF has revealed serious irregularities in the relationship between the German state and organized crime, writes Mandiner news portal.

“Kriminelle Clans in Deutschland” shows that criminal networks not only control large cities, but have also established their influence nationwide, right up to state institutions. Accumulating huge wealth illegally, they have built a tight network that includes law enforcement agencies.

“It is a murderous and extremely criminal milieu that goes on there. And now on so many levels that we no longer know whether we can really stop it at all. Were raids betrayed, investigations manipulated and employees bought off by the authorities? There is even despair in certain police stations,” states the narrator.

According to the documentary, the clans have laid siege to all of Germany, with drug trafficking even reaching rural areas in Lower Saxony while the leaders live in luxury villas in Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Citing a Focus article, Mandiner says that director Arnd Piechottka and his crew worked with inside informants and exclusive research.

One provincial detective says in the film: “There are police stations where despair reigns. When we conduct wiretaps, it often happens that police officers’ names come up in the cases. It’s crazy, almost unbelievable.”

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The documentary also presents new investigations into several police officers who provided intelligence and covered up drug trafficking in exchange for cash and luxury goods in a clan-controlled area.

The filmmakers spoke with an insider from the Berlin authorities, who has been investigating criminal clans for years and is also involved in raids.

“It is a murderous and extremely criminal milieu that operates there. And now on so many levels that we no longer know whether we can really stop it at all,’” said the source, who is operating under secrecy in his battle against the crime families. He says he even fears his own colleagues.

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“If you then find out that the person you have worked with for many years and actually thought you were pulling in the same direction suddenly drops the mask and has allowed himself to be bought. This is of course deeply disappointing. They go to work the next day in a completely different way, because they are naturally very afraid that the colleague opposite them or the colleague in the neighboring office has also been bought off and that they could possibly end up in great danger at some point.

Currently, the LKA is currently investigating a police commissioner and a senior police officer for corruption, obstruction of justice in office, tax evasion and money laundering. They are said to have received hundreds of thousands of euros from criminal clan gang members.

The film also features clan members who talk about their connections to customs authorities. “Whoever controls (…) customs can do practically anything. It’s the gateway to most businesses,” another source told ZDF, a state broadcaster.

The film reveals corruption mechanisms that can also be detected in the private sector, which have been elevated to a new level through clan structures. According to Karin Holloch, a member of Transparency International’s German branch, “Clans use corruption methods that combine classic blackmail, influence and intimidation; this is a relatively new phenomenon in corruption research.”

In the face of organized crime infiltrating the state to such an extent, viewers are led to wonder: “Is the German state powerless?”

The documentary notes that “with the next wave of refugees, asylum-seeking clans are also traveling via Frankfurt am Main.”

Former LKA investigator Thomas Ganz, who specializes in analyzing clan structures in rural areas, said he still advises the police in Lower Saxony today.

“These families came to Germany at the end of the Lebanese civil war. And in Germany, there were points of contact for these families in the four affected federal states of Berlin, Bremen, Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. In these federal states, there were also favorable conditions for these large families. They were not threatened with immediate deportation to their countries of origin in these federal states. This had been suspended. Of course, the situation was completely different in the other federal states, for example Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, i.e. in the southern states. And clans go where they find favorable conditions,” he stated.

Besides running criminal networks that generate hundreds of millions of euros, many of these clans have been involved in extremely high-profile murders and gang battles, sometimes numbering up to a hundred individuals or more.