So it's a 10-line type story, that really begs for clarification.
German cops and prosecutors from around Schleswig-Holstein and Flensburg (extreme north Germany) have been active in the past couple of days, with a search warrant.
Yesterday, they went through sixteen residences or business points with the search warrants....to include Hamburg as well.
It's centered on one single gang....10 men and 1 woman. All Syrian in terms of nationality.
Right now, the chatter is that they are a criminal gang, engaged in illegal money transfers. Money-laundering? No, the cops haven't said that. Money is taken by the group, and moved back toward Syria. It doesn't appear to have gone on for long....maybe seven months max.
The prosecution folks aren't that sure that the group is criminal in their intent, and that they might be forming terror plans.
The funny thing about this whole story....the more you look over the aspects, it just looks a heck of a lot like a Hawala-situation. Hawala, for those who've never heard of it....is generally accepted across the Middle East and it's where you go to an agent in your town, who is connected to an agent in another town. One calls the other, and say x-amount is in the hands of agent number one, and that agent number two can release x-amount to customer number two. In countries like Egypt, Syria and Iraq.....it's readily accepted. In Germany? Well....it's not something that the Germans have readily handled in the past. I'm guessing that they want you registered and reporting income via paperwork....something that most Hawala 'bosses' avoid.
The chatter of terror gangs? The German prosecutor view, from news reports, would suggest that they haven't crossed off terror operations yet.
Could all of this be just plain regular Syrians living in Germany who want to send money back to relatives, and it's bundled up into massive transfers via these eleven operatives? I'm kinda leaning that way. Illegal? I would suggest that the German legal system would have to modify itself to handle Hawala-situations, and it's bound to attach itself to money-laundering if they did open up this 'door'. But the Syrian folks aren't going away, and they will be supporting relatives and friends for decades, while living in Germany.
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