Ethnic Crime Families Provoke German Crackdown:
Criminal clans of Arab and Kurdish origin clash violently in Berlin and broaden their sway in #Germany. My report via @WSJ

On a rainy morning in a cemetery last month, Berlin’s hidden underworld briefly emerged from the shadows. It was the funeral of a gang enforcer who got shot eight times as he took his wife and children for a stroll in a popular park. @WSJ https://t.co/3IMptFwdcZ
His funeral drew nearly 2,000 mourners from across the country. Scores of police officers watched as bearded, beefy men in tracksuits and crew cuts filed by. Older men were ferried to the graveside in luxury cars with dark-tinted windows. @WSJ https://t.co/3IMptFwdcZ
Security officials, politicians and researchers say Germany's burgeoning ethnic crime clans represent an immediate security concern as well as a warning about what can happen when migrants fail to integrate into their host societies. @WSJ https://t.co/3IMptFwdcZ
Some of the families stuck by tribal and Islamic codes of justice, spurning the state & its laws, a government study found. Insulated from society, governed by their own rules and hierarchies, several such families turned into criminal enterprises @wsj https://t.co/3IMptFwdcZ
Outside Berlin, criminal families with Arab and Kurdish roots have established branches in the Rhineland, Lower Saxony and the northern city of Bremen. @WSJ https://t.co/3IMptFwdcZ
Officially, most prominent clan members live off welfare, authorities say, but their empires span illegal activities from prostitution to fueling the city’s booming party industry with drugs. More recently, the families have branched into legal ventures https://t.co/3IMptFwdcZ
Since the 2015 immigration crisis, Berlin's criminal clans have been recruiting young refugees to act mainly as street-level drug dealers. Via @WSJ https://t.co/3IMptFwdcZ
Sami, who said he had shared a prison cell with Mr. Rabih, said new gangs were disturbing Berlin’s criminal equilibrium. “Now it’s like New York here: Chechens, Kurds, Albanians, Russians, Moroccans, Turks, Gypsies,” he said. “Everyone wants their share.” https://t.co/3IMptFwdcZ
“The clans see our liberal democratic society as something to be plundered. Yet even discussing crime and ethnicity was off-limits until recently,” said Ralph Ghadban, who blames political correctness for authorities' failure to dismantle the ethnic gangs https://t.co/3IMptFwdcZ

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