Clan crime in the Ruhr area
In various cities in NRW, particularly in the Ruhr region, there have often been violent clashes between criminal family clans in the past. Shisha bars, pubs, tea rooms and betting shops are regularly used by these groups as places of residence and retreat. The public's sense of security is adversely affected by the displayed willingness to use violence and the great potential for mobilization. Police officers are harassed and provoked during everyday operations. Criminal clan members treat them with complete disrespect. Sometimes it is only possible to enforce identity checks or banning orders with a large police force.
Combating criminal structures together and consistently
The NRW police have therefore increased their presence in the Ruhr region. Uniformed police officers are on patrol there every day, regardless of the occasion. Large-scale raids and control measures are carried out at irregular intervals. In addition to the police, other authorities such as customs, tax investigation, public order offices, food monitoring and immigration authorities also take part in these raids.
Interior Minister Reul: "The fight against clan crime is one of our strategic police priorities. We are pursuing a strict zero-tolerance strategy. The answer is a policy of small pinpricks and pooling all forces. Only if the police, customs, trade, regulatory and tax authorities work closely together can we exhaust all legal means. That is why we want to further develop and refine this inter-agency operational concept as part of the Ruhr Conference."
Ruhr Conference
In order to develop the Ruhr region into a successful, competitive and liveable metropolitan region, the state government launched the Ruhr Conference this year.
Holistic development can only succeed together with all stakeholders in the region and in cooperation with each other. To this end, 20 thematic forums have been developed by the various departments to address all relevant areas of life, including the area of internal security. Every citizen's quality of life is largely dependent on their perception of security. This is increasingly being violated, particularly in the Ruhr region, by the harmful behavior of criminal family clans.
In order to tackle this criminal phenomenon together, the NRW police are holding a forum on the topic of clan crime in all its facets. Topics such as prevention, combating crime, networking and operational awareness are intended to enable a comprehensive approach to the issue. Interior Minister Herbert Reul as moderator and Police Commissioner Frank Richter as co-moderator will chair this forum. In this forum, the police, judiciary, customs, trade, public order and tax offices from the Ruhr region, as well as other responsible parties, will engage in intensive discussions and deepen their cooperation.
In addition to repressive measures, successful prevention concepts for leaving the milieu and criminal structures are also to be developed in future in order to show future generations better ways forward.
Further information on the Ruhr Conference here.
Background on the criminal clans
The conspicuous groups of people, who are usually defined by their ethnicity and membership of a family group, are very often members of the Mhallamiye population group from Turkey or Lebanon and people of Lebanese origin. This can also be empirically proven as a result of various police evaluation projects. A large proportion of the people known to the police now have German citizenship or are stateless.
The unconditional loyalty within the family, the denial of sovereign authority - whether in the prosecution of administrative offences or in internal dispute resolution - and the defense of the family honor with a very low-threshold concept of honor are typical behaviors of the clans, with which they seal themselves off from the outside world and assert their interests.
