Police raid suspected human trafficking sites in Germany

Around 800 police officers have raided flats and offices in northern and central Germany in a major operation against suspected human traffickers, police said.

A police spokesman said the officers acted on 21 search warrants in Hamburg, Bremen and other parts of northern and central Germany from late Monday into Tuesday.

Several suspects allegedly trafficked people mainly of Moldovan nationality into Germany for illegal labour.

Many of those suspects are thought to have links to Germany’s Reichsbuerger movement, which claims that the modern German federal republic is illegitimate.

The spokesman said three men aged between 30 and 43 were detained in the port city of Hamburg on Monday.

Two of them were German and the other Russian.

Officials will decide on Tuesday whether to formally arrest them.