Germany steps up fight against Hells Angels crime gang

In their scuffed leather jackets, grubby jeans and tough-guy tattoos, the Hells Angels motorcycle gang hardly look like the lords of a wealthy German organised-crime syndicate. But detectives who have investigated the gang’s involvement in brothels and drug trafficking contend that the violent Angels are wealthy and ruthless enough to even thwart police investigations by bribing corrupt police and prison officers.

Hells Angels history books say the group was formed in Fontana, California in 1948 by former soldiers who missed the macho world of war. The powerful motorbikes, fearsome clothing and hard-drinking partying in Angel clubhouses lured free-spirited younger men.

The movement spread to Europe in the 1970s. The German-speaking groups adopted the English name and organised themselves in loosely federated US-style “chapters,” often led by the most ferocious man. Angels, individually or in groups, had repeatedly faced trial on organised-crime charges, weapons offences, and for murders, assaults and running prostitution rackets.

Stefan Schubert, a former police officer who has written a book about the German Hells Angels, estimates there are 1,000 so-called charter or full members in Germany and 2,000 to 3,000 hangers-on. The Hells Angel movement has spread to 35 nations on five continents. “Germany is one of the most important Hells Angels countries in the world, so the German Angels have gained in influence internationally,” he said in an interview with dpa.

But Schubert cautioned against the view that all Angels are criminals. “There are quite a few German chapters that don’t misbehave, where it really is just about brotherhood and riding bikes and having parties,” he said. “But in some places they develop mafia-style structures.” Criminologists say such Angels followed a classic path where vice and drug kingpins turned to them for protection, only for the tough guys to take over the racket. Investment in restaurants, which enable crime groups to launder earnings, may often follow. Rivalry with a similar, ethnic German, equally violent gang of men, the Bandidos, functioned as a natural check until the Hells Angels announced a peace accord with them in 2010. Authorities have repeatedly outlawed chapters and districts of the Hells Angels, but as one goes down, another pops up to replace it.

In the financial capital Frankfurt, police made several arrests in their own ranks when a chapter was outlawed last year: officers on the gang’s payroll were accused of passing them tip-offs about raids and information from police databases. A chapter in the northern city of Kiel was banned this year, and a police officer, jail warder and public servant have been arrested.

Police inquiries are hampered by the code of silence among gang members and their contempt for the police. “Even if you are a victim, you don’t help the police,” said Schubert. This week, 1,200 police raided Angels homes and clubhouses in a widening inquiry in the north of the country. Elite armed police using a helicopter arrived at dawn in the palatial home near the city of Hanover of Frank Hanebuth.

“Hanebuth is the most powerful Hells Angel in Germany, perhaps in Europe,” said Schubert. A high-fees trial lawyer, Goetz von Fromberg, voiced outrage that the masked police had kicked in doors and shot dead one of Hanebuth’s fierce dogs, saying, “This attack was very inappropriate.” Von Fromberg said it was “utterly absurd” to link his client to any of the charges in the current inquiry. Newspapers reported that von Fromberg is a social acquaintance of Hanover’s most famous resident, former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, and speculated whether the accused had been introduced to the politician at parties. Another Hanebuth associate however has been indicted for pimping, with prosecutors alleging he exploited a workforce of eastern European prostitutes.