At around 7 a.m., criminal investigators moved in and searched several rooms in the refugee housing. Parallel to that search, another search was being conducted in accommodations in the town of Wiehl. Altogether, around 150 police officers were at the two locations.

The raids resulted from intensive investigative work of a team specially appointed to combat home burglary crimes and theft from vehicles. Since the beginning of August, Detective Chief Superintendant Mark Patrick Lück led investigative efforts in close cooperation with Andreas Riedel of the City Prosecutor’s Office. The trail took them to seven persons of Albanian origin, ages 21 - 45 -years old. Initially, all of the men were living at the refugee shelter at Deutschherrenstraße but one of them had eventually moved to a hotel in Wiehl.

According to the latest information, the men are strongly suspected of having committed at least 19 crimes in Bonn, Bornheim, Niederkassel and Cologne. The suspects could have also been underway in the neighboring state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Lück indicated that authorities believe the suspects may also be responsible for other crimes and that police are working closely with prosecutors to continue the investigations.

Two of the men had already been detained pending deportation and the other five were taken into custody on Wednesday during the raid. Objects that were seized during the raid are being examined and evaluated by experts of the investigation team. (Orig. text: ga)