30 drug dealers targeted Police take stock after huge raid in Tannenbusch
Bonn · Police conducted a large-scale raid in Bonn and the region on Tuesday morning. 23 people have been arrested and tens of thousands Euros in cash seized.
The police have been preparing for this day for several months. From 6am on Tuesday morning, around 30 apartments and houses were searched in Bonn, Alfter, Bornheum, Niederkassel and Cologne, 20 of them in the Bonn city area. It is one of the largest drugs raids in Bonn’s history. The focus of the operation was in Tannenbusch. A police helicopter was also used and circled over Tannenbusch-Mitte during the morning. Police dogs were also used.
Police said at the scene that the raid was also about hard drugs such as cocaine. Police took initial stock during the morning: numerous arrest warrants were executed and further arrests made. A total of 23 people were arrested. Police also said around 60,000 Euros in cash and 49 mobile phones were seized. Police found around one kilo of marijuana, 75 grammes of cocaine and several bottles of anabolic steroids in the 35 properties searched.
“Findings from former arrests, our own observations and findings from past proceedings against gangs in 2017 led to the trail of two brothers aged 25 and 31 who grew up in Bonn-Tannenbusch,” police said at lunchtime. They are suspected of having largely organised the drug trade in Tannenbusch.
More than 30 alleged drug dealers
More than 30 alleged drug dealers from the Tannenbusch area have been investigated in recent months as part of undercover investigations by the police and public prosecutors. “Some of the apparently closely connected suspects handled the street trade in marijuana. The suspects were hardly affected by regular police controls and isolated arrests,” the police continued.
Police have been able to observe in recent months how the drug deals take place. “While some suspects regularly waited for drug users on trams, others were active as part of a warning system of possible approaching police personnel,” said police in their announcement. “Approaching ‘customers’ were led to the changing handover locations for hard drugs by a chain of suspects.”
The two main suspects arrested on Tuesday handled the trade in cocaine, according to current information. Several suspects stored, packaged and sold the drugs on their behalf. They were also arrested on Tuesday.
Connection to cases at New Year
A total of twelve arrest warrants were executed on Tuesday and eleven further suspects were provisionally detained. Besides the two main suspects, police say three suspects thought to have fired New Year’s Eve fireworks from a moving rental car in Bonn-Tannenbusch at the end of December 2017 are also among the people arrested.
A total of around 300 police officers took part in the operation. The police helicopter supported officers on site from the air to stop those being searched for warning each other and fleeing.
(Original text: Nicolas Ottersbach, Sebastian Fink. Translation: kc)
