Relocation to new areas This is where the Bonn drug scene is shifting
Bonn · Suspects from the drug milieu are arrested nearly every week. Dealers rearrange themselves as police controls become stronger, relocating their business to other parts of the city.
White sneakers, black tracksuit pants tucked in sports socks, the zipper of the red tracksuit jacket is open. The fanny pack is casually hung over his shoulder, resting on his chest, where a silver chain glistens. Even if the young man, who does not yet have any facial hair, pulled his cap down over his face: Somehow he can be recognized at first glance - as a drug dealer. Just watching him is enough. "Grass?"
For ten euros, there is a gram of marijuana, rolled up in aluminum foil. On a Wednesday afternoon, on a park bench in the middle of the Bonn Hofgarten. Even though the police in Bonn are consistent in their efforts against drug dealing, monitoring the market with great effort, they are not able to completely stamp out the illegal activity. "We know that this is difficult to tackle because the scene keeps shifting. The demand in Bonn is there", says Heinz Schmitz, head of the Criminal Commissariat 33, which is responsible for drug crimes.
Dealers have built a complex distribution system
Since March, there have been three large-scale police actions. 40 people were arrested. Investigators secured drugs worth around € 330,000 - including 11.5 kilograms of marijuana, 670 grams of cocaine, 2.4 kilograms of amphetamines and about 600 grams of heroin. Again and again, the officers found weapons - and a total of more than 100,000 euros in cash. It’s the result of months of undercover investigations. Only in this way are they able to obtain arrest warrants right from the start at the prosecutor's office. The goal: "drain the swamp." Get to the dealers who smuggle drugs like cocaine and cannabis into Bonn.
The problem is that there is no consistent hierarchy in the scene. If someone is arrested, another person takes their place. "You have to imagine it like a big anthill, there's no such thing as a godfather," explains Schmitz. The investigators distinguish three levels of trade: the dealers on the street, who bring the substance to the consumer. The middlemen who store, package and distribute drugs. And then those who secure the supply like on a wholesale market.
As police discovered in Tannenbusch, the system behind it is complex. Customers are led through a chain of dealers to get to the hard drugs. Drug drops can take place in park areas, some are passed to buyers on trams, while other members of the drug gangs are part of a warning system, whistling to each other to sound an alarm. In May, around 300 police raided countless homes and arrested 23 suspects.
Business is relocated
"It has calmed down," says a young man who lives in Tannenbusch where he grew up. It is no longer so obviously dealt on the street, the "heroin junkies" having disappeared along with the dealers. "Here in Tannenbusch, everyone knows that they are being watched," he says, pointing to one of the skyscrapers on Oppelner Strasse. "There's a police camera up there."
While parents in particular favor the police crackdown because they are afraid to let their children go through Tannenbusch on their own, there are also those who oppose it. A woman in her mid-thirties complains, "They should take care of real offenders, not a few stoners." She believes Tannenbusch is always portrayed as dangerous but it is not. "And now that the cops are always hanging around here, the deals are more hidden." Or moved to other parts of the city.
Criminal inspection director Uwe Neuser said they have detected a shift in the drug dealing, which has led them to keep an eye even more so on places like school grounds and other meeting points. The Hofgarten, which is the park area outside the University of Bonn, is now the number one location for cannabis dealing. And addicts now meet on the plaza between Rosental and Kölnstraße, as well as at the main train station.
Increase in drug crimes
Anyone caught with a small amount of cannabis by police usually has no more than a criminal complaint to fear. Dealers are careful to not carry more than ten grams to escape harsher punishment. When the drugs are sold, a dealer says he can get more from a middleman in Tannenbusch - sometimes several times a day. From this, he earns enough money so that he doesn’t need a normal job.
A Bonn university student who has bought marijuana frequently says, “Often you get to know someone through friends who can get weed. Then you set up a meeting.” This is a market police find difficult to control, as well as business done on the internet and Darknet.
It is difficult to estimate the size of the drug scene in Bonn. “The more we do our controls, the more cases there are,” says Schmitz. It means the drug crime statistics go up but at the same time, the number of cases that come to light and are resolved is also increased. It is perhaps only the low price of drugs in Bonn that suggests there are many in circulation. "That will not change as long as the demand is there."
Orig. text: Nicolas Ottersbach. Translation: ck
