November 25, 2025, 12:42 p.mNovember 25, 2025, 12:42 p.m
After Germany-wide bomb threats, including against schools and train stations, the police searched several apartments in the federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Hesse and Saxony-Anhalt.
Police operations will be triggered in hundreds of cases in 2024. (symbol image)Image: keystone
The investigation is directed against four suspects, including two teenagers. They are said to have sent hundreds of threatening emails, as the Federal Criminal Police Office in Wiesbaden and the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor’s Office – Central Office for Combating Internet Crime (ZIT) jointly announced. In hundreds of cases in 2024, police operations were triggered and schools were closed or public spaces such as shopping centers were evacuated, it was said.
The accused are accused of being “as part of a supra-regional group of perpetrators responsible for hundreds of threatening emails with fake Germany-wide bomb threats against schools, main train stations, shopping centers and other urban and public facilities.”
The group is said to have networked in the “Schweinetreff” chat group
It was said that police operations were triggered in hundreds of cases. According to the information, the group came together purely virtually – under a closed messenger group called “Schweinetreff”. The aim was to “disrupt the public peace under the threat of criminal offenses to the detriment of life and limb, to trigger the greatest possible operational situations and to create the greatest possible uncertainty among the population”.
Specific cases include:
- Evacuation of the shopping center at Limbecker Platz in Essen in May 2024
- Closure of Neunkirchen train station and cessation of rail traffic in September 2024
- Evacuation of the MDR radio station in Magdeburg and extensive closure of the adjacent streets in October 2024
- Eviction and closure of a school in Bad Hersfeld in December 2024.
“Although no damaging event occurred as a result of the acts, the evacuation measures in Germany caused immense material damage in the high five-figure range,” it said. In addition, the missions in schools in particular caused psychological stress. (sda/dpa)