Photo Gallery Hells Angels Under Investigation
The leather jacket belonging to Frank Hanebuth, the president of Hanover's Hells Angels motorcycle club charter.
Hanebuth, 47, made the news when a special forces team raided his home on May 24, 2012. They roped into his backyard and killed his dog as part of massive investigative operations involving some 1,000 officers in the states of Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony.
A few days later on May 30, police in the nearby state of Brandenburg raided Hells Angels buildings in Potsdam, but they believe members were warned in advance. They seem to have sources within the local administration.
Hanebuth (left), shown here with his lawyer Götz von Fromberg when he signed a peace treaty with rival gang the Bandidos in 2010, told SPIEGEL that the allegations that he arranged a contract killing are "nonsense."
Police in Schleswig-Holstein outside a storage building that Hells Angels use to meet. Authorities in the state are still searching for a body that a star witness told them had been cemented into a building foundation. The missing man, Tekin Biçer, is believed to have been the object of the alleged contract killing arranged by leader Hanebuth.
Germany's four largest biker clubs -- the Hells Angels, Bandidos, Outlaws and Gremium -- count more than 3,500 members. The gangs try to cover up their criminal dealings, say investigators, with supposedly clean companies, such as security companies, bars and brothels. Here, Hanover police raid one such establishment in 2010.
In late May 2012, Berlin banned the "Hells Angels Motorcycle Club Berlin City," whose club house is shown here. According to the official order banning the club, anyone who got in the way of the bikers' business dealings was "eliminated through attempts at intimidation or, if necessary, with violence that led to serious injuries and even death."
The Hells Angels have also been a problem further south in Germany's Rhineland region. Here, police outside the Cologne charter in early May 2012.
