Overview
- Authorities executed coordinated early‑morning raids on Wednesday with roughly 1,700–2,250 officers searching about 140 locations in five German states and in Belgium, the Netherlands and Bulgaria.
- Investigators say 14 people were arrested on site and formal inquiries now list 71 suspects accused of running a criminal organisation and of extortion, large‑scale fraud, money‑laundering, weapons offences and tax crimes.
- Police and prosecutors seized a trove of evidence including 16 luxury cars, two motorcycles, large amounts of cash, Rolex watches, laptops and 21 weapons while freezing accounts and seeking approximately €48.6–48.7 million in asset arrests.
- Prosecutors have opened developing probes into suspected insider help after investigators found indications that a police officer and several municipal employees may have leaked information or accepted bribes.
- Officials framed the operation as part of a wider shift to ‘follow the money’ policing led by new finance‑crime units such as NRW’s Landesamt zur Bekämpfung der Finanzkriminalität and the Zoll’s special BAO, with follow‑up forensic work and prosecutions expected to take months and to test the resilience of the club’s commercial fronts.