Germany Bounty on German politicians? Darknet suspect caught
On the dark side of the internet, a man in Germany is said to have called for attacks on well-known politicians and collected donations for possible bounties.
11.11.2025, 15:32
SDA
Former German chancellors Olaf Scholz and Angela Merkel were also on the list of potential targets. On Monday evening, the federal prosecutor's office had the suspect arrested in Dortmund. He is now in custody.
The top German prosecutors accuse the German-Polish man of financing terrorism and instructing the commission of a serious act of violence endangering the state. In addition to the lists of names, he is also alleged to have published self-written death sentences and instructions for building explosive devices on the darknet. He also allegedly solicited donations in the form of cryptocurrency to be offered as a bounty for the killings.
Assassination attempt on politics?
The darknet is a hidden part of the internet. Websites cannot be found there in the conventional way - i.e. via the usual search engines or browsers - but only with the help of anonymization networks. The pages can usually only be accessed directly if you know the exact URL, according to the website of the Federal Office for Information Security. This means that the content often has a criminal background.
The platform "Assassination Politics" was therefore located in this hidden space: Assassination Politics. According to Der Spiegel, there were more than 20 names on the "death list" - including Scholz and Merkel as well as former ministers of the German government. According to the report, investigators also found "criminal files" and "death sentences" against judges and public prosecutors as well as right-wing extremist, racist and conspiracy ideology content.
Right-wing extremist Reichsbürger scene
According to the federal prosecutor's office, the platform also contained further information with sensitive personal data about potential victims. They are therefore also accusing the arrested man of disseminating personal data in a way that endangers the public.
Investigators attribute the man to the right-wing extremist Reichsbürger milieu. According to reports by Tagesschau, the man had been known to the security authorities since 2020 because he had attracted attention for acts of resistance at coronavirus protests. The tip-off about the man's activities on the Darknet apparently came from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
"Reich citizens" do not recognize the Federal Republic of Germany and its institutions. They claim that the German Reich (1871-1945) continues to exist.
Arrest in Karlsruhe
Officers from the Federal Criminal Police Office and special forces from the Federal Police arrested the suspect in Dortmund (North Rhine-Westphalia) on Monday. On Tuesday, he was taken to Karlsruhe (Baden-Württemberg) to be presented for arrest, where the investigating judge of the Federal Court of Justice issued the arrest warrant and enforced it.
Germany's Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said in Berlin that the investigation into the case had been ongoing since June. "We assume that the suspicion of terrorist financing will be substantiated here." Nothing is yet publicly known about possible accomplices of the man, who lives with his family in Dortmund.
