BERLIN // It is one of the biggest and most embarrassing bungles in the history of German crime fighting. Police spent two years hunting "the Phantom of Heilbronn", believed to be a female serial killer who had left her DNA at 40 crime scenes, only to find they had been fooled by a tainted supply of cotton swabs.
Police and state prosecutors across southern Germany as well as in Austria and France hunted the mysterious woman who had committed a bizarre variety of crimes ranging from cold-blooded murder to burglary, petty theft and vandalism.
Police admitted this week they had been led on a wild goose chase as a result of faulty cotton swabs used in collecting DNA from various crimes scenes. The DNA was traced on Friday to a less than meticulous female packer at a medical products company in Bavaria.
Bild, Germany's best-selling daily newspaper, described the fiasco as "the most embarrassing police error of all time" and asked: "Have the police got cotton wool in their heads?"
Police have been quick to dismiss concern that the case has damaged a key tool of modern crime-fighting - extracting DNA evidence from hair, skin or blood left at crime scenes.
German police authorities pledged to co-operate to develop common standards for collecting forensic evidence in the future. "The weak point now identified will lead to decisive improvement in gathering evidence," Klaus Hiller, the president of the regional criminal police force in the state of Baden-Württemberg, told a news conference. That may not be enough to silence criticism given the thousands of hours of police time wasted in probes and the prospect that dozens of crimes will have to be re-investigated. To make matters worse, it emerged this week that German police ignored warnings from their Austrian colleagues that there might be something wrong with their forensic checks.
In addition, the medical products firm that supplied the swabs, Austrian-owned Greiner Bio-One, said they were never intended for use in DNA tests. "The swabs are exclusively suited to medical purposes," the firm's manager, Heinz Schmid, told a news conference.
One police investigator said: "The things came in double packaging. We thought they were the Mercedes of cotton swabs."
The mistake originated in April 2007, when a policewoman was shot dead in the southern town of Heilbronn. Police swabbing the crime scene found the DNA of a woman on the police car. It was matched to DNA found in two other unsolved murder cases - the strangulations of a woman in 1993 and an elderly German man in 2001, both in southern towns.
As their fruitless hunt for the murderer of their colleague grew more desperate, police started checking all new crime scenes, even burglaries, for the DNA in a bid to track her down.
Fooled by their faulty swabs, police linked the DNA to 40 crimes, including a total of three killings and two attempted killings, and became convinced they were hunting a female mastermind with an eclectic taste in crime.
"Since April 2008, police had been saying the evidence wasn't plausible. Something didn't fit. They couldn't construct a psychological profile of the perpetrator," said Heribert Rech, the interior minister of Baden-Württemberg last week.
The phantom's DNA started turning up everywhere - on a half-eaten biscuit in a vandalised garden shed, on a discarded drug syringe, on the bullet a man had fired at a relative in a domestic dispute and had got lodged in a living room wall. She also stole a guitar, according to police. An array of robberies and burglaries was attributed to her. Her DNA turned up in 16 cases of theft in Austria, too.
Police who voiced doubts because their experience and gut instinct told them the pattern of crimes did not fit were ignored. The DNA evidence was followed blindly even though witnesses to the various crimes never reported seeing a woman. So the police concluded she may look like a man, and was probably transsexual.
Last Wednesday evening, Baden-Württemberg's police force officially admitted that the DNA traces were "no longer plausible" and that police had been looking at the possibility of a "foreign contamination" since February.
Austrian police said they had warned their German colleagues last year that something must be wrong because they had found the woman's DNA on the finger of a 21-year-old man beaten to death in a pub brawl in Linz last September. The assailants, all male, were apprehended and no woman had been seen in the vicinity.
German police were finally swayed when they found the DNA on the file of an asylum-seeker they were trying to match to an unidentified corpse.
Unsurprisingly, Germany's Federal Criminal Police Agency BKA, which has DNA records on more than 620,000 people in its database, has called for a review of police forensic techniques to rule out future contamination.
The case has raised serious doubts about the reliability of that database. A BKA spokesman said it would be "speculative" to comment on how many of the records might be tainted by faulty evidence- gathering equipment.
@Email:dcrossland@thenational.ae
10 tips for entry-level job seekers
- Have an up-to-date, professional LinkedIn profile. If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, set one up today. Avoid poor-quality profile pictures with distracting backgrounds. Include a professional summary and begin to grow your network.
- Keep track of the job trends in your sector through the news. Apply for job alerts at your dream organisations and the types of jobs you want – LinkedIn uses AI to share similar relevant jobs based on your selections.
- Double check that you’ve highlighted relevant skills on your resume and LinkedIn profile.
- For most entry-level jobs, your resume will first be filtered by an applicant tracking system for keywords. Look closely at the description of the job you are applying for and mirror the language as much as possible (while being honest and accurate about your skills and experience).
- Keep your CV professional and in a simple format – make sure you tailor your cover letter and application to the company and role.
- Go online and look for details on job specifications for your target position. Make a list of skills required and set yourself some learning goals to tick off all the necessary skills one by one.
- Don’t be afraid to reach outside your immediate friends and family to other acquaintances and let them know you are looking for new opportunities.
- Make sure you’ve set your LinkedIn profile to signal that you are “open to opportunities”. Also be sure to use LinkedIn to search for people who are still actively hiring by searching for those that have the headline “I’m hiring” or “We’re hiring” in their profile.
- Prepare for online interviews using mock interview tools. Even before landing interviews, it can be useful to start practising.
- Be professional and patient. Always be professional with whoever you are interacting with throughout your search process, this will be remembered. You need to be patient, dedicated and not give up on your search. Candidates need to make sure they are following up appropriately for roles they have applied.
Arda Atalay, head of Mena private sector at LinkedIn Talent Solutions, Rudy Bier, managing partner of Kinetic Business Solutions and Ben Kinerman Daltrey, co-founder of KinFitz
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Profile
Company name: Jaib
Started: January 2018
Co-founders: Fouad Jeryes and Sinan Taifour
Based: Jordan
Sector: FinTech
Total transactions: over $800,000 since January, 2018
Investors in Jaib's mother company Alpha Apps: Aramex and 500 Startups
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
THE BIO
Bio Box
Role Model: Sheikh Zayed, God bless his soul
Favorite book: Zayed Biography of the leader
Favorite quote: To be or not to be, that is the question, from William Shakespeare's Hamlet
Favorite food: seafood
Favorite place to travel: Lebanon
Favorite movie: Braveheart
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
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Send “thenational” to the following numbers or call the hotline on: 0502955999
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The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
Everton 1 Stoke City 0
Everton (Rooney 45 1')
Man of the Match Phil Jagielka (Everton)
Tom Fletcher on 'soft power'
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Normal People
Sally Rooney, Faber & Faber
Match info
Manchester United 1 (Van de Beek 80') Crystal Palace 3 (Townsend 7', Zaha pen 74' & 85')
Man of the match Wilfried Zaha (Crystal Palace)
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
match info
Chelsea 2
Willian (13'), Ross Barkley (64')
Liverpool 0
Volvo ES90 Specs
Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)
Power: 333hp, 449hp, 680hp
Torque: 480Nm, 670Nm, 870Nm
On sale: Later in 2025 or early 2026, depending on region
Price: Exact regional pricing TBA
Sholto Byrnes on Myanmar politics
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
RESULTS
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The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
CHELSEA'S NEXT FIVE GAMES
Mar 10: Norwich(A)
Mar 13: Newcastle(H)
Mar 16: Lille(A)
Mar 19: Middlesbrough(A)
Apr 2: Brentford(H)
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets