Overview

• Bundespolizei agents intercepted the suspect during passport control on a flight from Istanbul and took him into custody at Cologne/Bonn Airport.
• Investigators accuse him of facilitating 39 gold transactions from 2018 to 2021 that involved more than 30 kilograms of stolen factory filings melted into bars.
• Pforzheim prosecutors had issued an arrest warrant after uncovering the theft ring that supplied gold filings from a local ring factory.
• The original thief received a three-year, eight-month sentence in 2022 for stealing the gold filings before they entered the resale network.
• Authorities are now probing potential international connections of the trafficking network and methods used to launder the illicit gold.