Refugees living in Germany are helping law enforcement authorities nab suspected criminals by crowdsourcing terror tips on social media sites, the Wall Street Journal reported, sometimes even finding suspects themselves.
In the latest instance, last month, German authorities sent out a public call for help in Arabic to search for Jaber al-Bakr, a 22-year-old Syrian suspected bombmaker who escaped a police manhunt after they found explosives at his residence — but hundreds of Syrians had already translated the wanted notice. Just two days later, a group of Syrian refugees who temporarily housed him tied him up for law enforcement officials and turned him in.
German authorities with the federal criminal agency Bundeskriminalamt, often abbreviated as BKA, received 445 tips regarding potential incidents involving terror and Islamist supporters over the past 18 months and 1,250 about suspected war criminals. At least 80 tips turned into in-depth investigations, the publication reported.
“Some of the information from refugees is invaluable, security officials said, given authorities are often investigating crimes rooted in distant and inaccessible countries,” according to the Wall Street Journal. “But many of the tips are vague or unsubstantiated, evidence that is too thin to justify an investigation let alone a trial.”
Germany received 800,000 refugee arrivals last year, as part of a commitment to accommodate the swell of North African and Middle Eastern refugees and migrants arriving in the European Union across the Mediterranean Sea. About two million refugees and migrants have been resettled in the European Union over the past two years, leaving some residents with ample chances to conflate all refugees with acts of terrorism.
Even as the militant group Islamic State have claimed some of the terror attacks happening in Germany at the hands of refugees, officials are also receiving help from other refugees during immigration interviews and refugee activists who collect information on suspected war criminals and Islamic State captors.
Despite the fact that refugees are viewed with suspicion in their adopted home country, it’s unsurprisingly common for members of denigrated groups to provide tips for law enforcement officials. In the United States, political election cycle rancor has already conflated Muslims with terrorists, with one presidential candidate calling on Muslims to watch one another for suspicious activities. Yet as a 2011 University of North Carolina (UNC) study found, nearly 40 percent of Muslim Americans provided the “largest single source of initial information” about terrorism plots, suspicious activities, or suspects that may be missing overseas.
FBI agents and FBI Director James Comey have also indicated that Muslims do, in fact, submit tips. “They do not want people committing violence, either in their community or in the name of their faith, and so some of our most productive relationships are with people who see things and tell us things who happen to be Muslim,” Comey said in June.