Immigration authority in Munich: Police searched for administrative buildings

According to the district administration department (KVR), the police and public prosecutors searched the immigration office. There is suspicion that rights of immigration law were wrongly issued there against money, the Munich I public prosecutor said. Four employees of the authority and another man sit in custody. Initially, “Münchner Merkur” and “tz” reported on the search.

Accordingly, the investigators suspect five current employees and a former employee of the immigration office of having made illegal decisions on foreign law issues from May 2022 to January 2024 “in numerous cases”. It is primarily about suspicion of bribery and forgery of documents.

The man, which is not employed by the city, is said to have given contact with the relevant foreigners, made fake documents and paid money to the employees. He is suspected of bribery and forgery of documents.

In addition to the rooms in the KVR, private apartments were also searched on Tuesday. Now the investigators would have to evaluate extensive documents, said a spokeswoman for the public prosecutor. That will take some time.

According to the public prosecutor, the advertisement had been made by the city itself. The investigation was based on internal investigations by the KVR itself, in which the public prosecutor was involved at an early stage, the KVR said. The inconsistencies in the processing of cases were noticed by regular control mechanisms.

“Like the entire state capital of Munich, the KVR pursues a zero tolerance policy in terms of corruption and brings any suspicion,” said district administrative officer Hanna Sammüller-Gradl (Greens), which is headed by the authority in July 2022. “We started the first suspicion of internal investigations immediately after the emergence and have promoted them together with the investigative authorities in recent months.”

A KVR spokeswoman had previously announced that the investigators had taken five official employees with them. The rest of the workforce was informed internally about the events.

A spokeswoman for Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) announced that the town hall chief is not for the time being on the case because of the ongoing investigation.

The immigration office is only a department of numerous in the Munich district administration department. Anyone who lives in Munich has to do with the KVR in many authorities – among other things, the registry office, the registration authority and the citizens’ office are among the departments in the KVR.