EnglishIn April 2022,[1] October 2022,[2] and February 2025[3] several raids took place as part of an investigation into the editors of the German anarchist newspaper Zündlumpen, published from 2019 to 2021. In February 2025 two people, N. and M., were arrested: they were accused of being editors of Zündlumpen and suspected of having committed several arsons.[4]
In April 2022 a raid on a print shop took place in which police seized thousands of books, zines, and newspapers, as well as all printing equipment and materials, apparently in an attempt to disrupt the printing capacity of local anarchists.
Techniques used
| Name | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| Covert house visit | Investigators made a covert visit of the cabins where N. and M. lived in order to collect scent samples.[5] | |
| Covert surveillance devices | ||
| Audio | Microphones were installed:[5]
| |
| Location | A GPS tracker was installed on N.'s car.[5] | |
| Video | Cameras were installed:[5]
| |
| Detection dogs | In some of the raids, detection dogs were used to locate electronic devices.[3] Investigators made a covert visit of the cabins where N. and M. lived and, using handkerchiefs, collected scent samples from objects believed to belong to N. and M.[5] In the following months, on three occasions, after an arson took place in the region, they brought the handkerchiefs to the arson site and provided them to detection dogs, asking the dogs to locate the scents. The dogs signaled that they located the scents on the remains of firelighters, firelighter packaging, and a canister lid. In the February 2025 arrests of N. and M., scent samples were collected from their necks.[4] | |
| Forensics | ||
| DNA | In some of the raids, DNA traces were collected from a cigarette butt,[6] zines,[7] books, doors, cups, and printing machines. | |
| Linguistics | Investigators compared texts from the newspaper Zündlumpen with private letters found in house raids, hoping to prove that people had written in the newspaper.[7] | |
| International cooperation | House raids were conducted Austria, targeting people suspected of being close to N. and M.[5] | |
| Mass surveillance | ||
| Video surveillance | Three weeks before an arson, a wildlife camera near the arson site captured a person walking, wearing an orange jacket.[5] After the arson, investigators obtained the camera footage and claimed that the jacket resembled one that M. had worn at some point. | |
| Network mapping | Investigators claimed that because N. and M. were partners, they likely committed arson together.[5] | |
| Open-source intelligence | Investigators:[5]
| |
| Physical surveillance | ||
| Aerial | Drones were used to follow N. and M. in a forest during a covert physical surveillance operation.[5] | |
| Covert | Investigators followed N. for 15 days.[7] | |
| Police patrols | Investigators sent a police patrol outside of N.'s apartment every night at irregular times to check if she was at her apartment.[7] | |
| Service provider collaboration | ||
| Mobile network operators | Investigators used the collaboration of mobile network operators to:
| |
| Other | Investigators used the collaboration of banks to:[7]
Investigators asked several companies to provide information about N.:
| |
| Targeted digital surveillance | ||
| Authentication bypass | In some of the raids, police seized smartphones immediately after entering and plugged them into power banks, presumably to prevent them from shutting down and reverting to an encrypted state.[1] The February arrests of N. and M. took place in a public library, while N. and M. were using a computer.[4] Police officers wearing civilian clothes waited until N. and M. had unlocked the computer to reveal themselves and make the arrest, presumably to access the computer while it was unlocked. | |
| IMSI-catcher | Investigators used an IMSI-catcher to identify the phone number of N.'s mother. They used it both at the mother's home and at her workplace: the correlation of the two uses allowed them to identify the phone number.[7] | |