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| - Three people were arrested in Germany on Thursday as several hundred police carried out raids in the Berlin area and Hamburg targeting organised crime, prosecutors said. "About 500 police officers ... have executed three arrest warrants and 33 search warrants in Berlin, Brandenburg and Hamburg," the Berlin public prosecutor's office said in a statement. Police are investigating 36 suspects connected to the formation of a criminal organisation in the area of "violent debt collection", the authorities said. The suspects, including members of the Hells Angels biker group, had obtained "not inconsiderable assets" by collecting debts, committing fraud and dealing in narcotics, they said. The raids, which began at 6 am (0500 GMT), were also aimed at two so-called "family clans" -- the Arab Abou-Chaker clan and the Turkish Surer clan -- according to the Bild daily. In Berlin, officers searched sites in the Charlottenburg, Mitte and Spandau districts, the Bild report said. The raids led to "traffic disruptions throughout the city" on Thursday morning, according to the Berlin state transport ministry. Berlin in particular has been stepping up its fight against organised crime in recent years. In 2018, police seized nine million euros ($11 million) from an extended family after raiding 77 properties in the capital. Several million euros were also seized in a major operation in September targeting clan members accused of tax evasion and money laundering. In November, more than 1,600 police officers carried out major raids against a family known as the Remmo clan over a spectacular jewellery heist in the city of Dresden a year ago. Three members of the family were arrested over the crime, in which more than a dozen pieces of diamond-encrusted jewellery were snatched from a state museum. The family is notorious for ties to organised crime and its members were in February convicted in another high-profile museum break-in in central Berlin. fec/hmn/cdw
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