"Special Task Force" (BAO)/ "Bosporus"
The “Special Task Force” (Besondere Aufbauorganisation, BAO) codenamed “Bosporus” was based at the Mittelfranken Nuremberg Police Headquarters and operated from 1 July 2005 to 31 January 2008. As of 1 June 2006 it employed sixty officers. Until the end of 2005, leads pointing to neo-Nazis were ignored and investigations focused exclusively on “organised crime.” By that point, seven people of foreign origin had already been murdered with the same weapon. Investigations into the neo-Nazi scene, which came into investigators’ focus only very late, were pursued half-heartedly and without imagination. Racism and prejudice shaped the police investigations. Undercover investigators were deployed against the victims’ families, and sham döner kebab shops were operated in Nuremberg and Munich. On 20 July 2006, the Bavarian State Office for the Protection of the Constitution refused to give the BAO “data on all right-wing extremists in Bavaria.” After months of hesitation, information was provided on only 682 right-wing extremists in the greater Nuremberg area. Alibi checks were carried out on only 161 individuals, and warning interviews (“Gefährderansprachen”) were conducted with nine prominent figures from the scene. The BAO’s staff was then drastically reduced. By early 2008 the special task force had been cut to just nine officers.
External sources
1.2.2008