Germany raids, bans violent biker gang United Tribuns

BERLIN (AP) — German authorities raided premises linked to the biker gang United Tribuns across the country, after the nation’s top security official banned the group Wednesday for its involvement in violent crime.

Around 1,500 police officers searched 108 buildings in different parts of Germany, with a focus on the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein and western North Rhine-Westphalia.

Officers seized weapons and dangerous objects of various kinds, including firearms, machetes, baseball bats and brass knuckles, the German interior ministry said in a statement.

They also confiscated cell phones and laptops, cash and various narcotics.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the group and its 13 chapters would be dissolved and its assets seized.

“Biker crime is characterized by great brutality. Disputes in the rocker milieu endanger completely uninvolved people time and again,” she said. “Members of the group United Tribuns have committed serious crimes: sexual crimes, people trafficking and attempted killings.”

The gang, which was formed in 2004, has been involved in violent clashes with other biker groups, such as the Hells Angels. Its founder, named on the group’s website as Almir ‘Boki’ Culum, is originally from Bosnia.