Updated

Updated · The Independent · Aug 21

Germany Seeks 1 Suspect's Extradition Over Berlin Gun Cache Tied to Russian Assassination Plot

Updated

Updated · The Independent · Aug 21

Germany Seeks 1 Suspect's Extradition Over Berlin Gun Cache Tied to Russian Assassination Plot

Q: How did German authorities originally locate the professionally concealed assassin's weapons cache before planting GPS trackers?

German authorities appear to have found the cache because the domestic intelligence service, the BfV, received specific intelligence about its location and then sent officers to verify the tip on the ground. The reporting says the weapons were professionally hidden in a forest near the Berlin-Brandenburg border, but investigators were not searching at random. They were reportedly acting on prior information, described in several accounts as a tip or concrete location data. After reaching the site, officers uncovered the concealed depot and confirmed it contained two operational handguns. Only after that discovery did specialists secretly disable the guns and fit them with GPS trackers, while leaving the hiding place largely intact under surveillance in hopes that someone would return to collect the weapons. So the cache was originally located through intelligence-led information provided to German security services, not through the GPS devices themselves.

3 articles · Updated · The Independent · Aug 21

Germany is discussing the extradition from Romania of a man detained over a handgun cache found in a forest near Berlin last year.
German authorities believe the weapons were stored for assassinations ordered by Russian intelligence, with potential targets including defence executives, exiled opposition figures and supporters of Ukraine.
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the case shows Germany is operating under a high threat level and did not rule out the involvement of foreign powers.
The Federal Public Prosecutor is investigating suspected planning of a serious act of violence threatening the state, while prosecutors, domestic intelligence and the Russian embassy declined comment.