Prosecutors say anti-Vaxxer crew conspired to spark civil war in Germany because of COVID restrictions

Police are searching for a fifth suspect after four people were arrested for what was described as an elaborate plot to paralyze Germany and spark a civil war over COVID restrictions. The alleged scheme allegedly included a plan to kidnap Health Minister Karl Lauterbach and vandalize utility facilities to cause power outages across the country.

Police on Thursday searched 20 residences and confiscated dozens of weapons, including a Kalashnikov assault rifle and firearms. They said they also found foreign currency, gold bars and silver coins used to finance a botched plan “to induce civil war-like conditions and ultimately overthrow the democratic system.” owner in Germany,” the state prosecutor said in the arrest warrant.

Police made the arrest after surveying a Telegram chat group called Vereinte Patrioten, which roughly translates to Patriots.

Police also found a trove of fake vaccination certificates and negative COVID tests that should have been entered to carry out the plot. Last week, Germany’s lower house of parliament voted to ban vaccinations for people over 60, after Chancellor Olaf Scholz failed to win support.

“The two main suspects are believed to have agreed with others to carry out an attack on the federal health minister,” the Koblenz prosecutor’s office said. They are part of the far-right Reichsbürger group that believes the modern German state is illegitimate.

In a separate case on Wednesday, German prosecutors also charged a young neo-Nazi with ties to the US-based Atomwaffen Division for accusing him of trying to start a “war”. race” and “found a terrorist organization” to “preserve the white population. ” Prosecutors say he intended to commit “a serious and dangerous act of violence” against the state and has been jailed since September 2021.

The latest threats to After a similar plot was allegedly foiled in December, when police found hunting weapons, including crossbows and spikes, in the city of Dresden, intended to be used to kidnap the State Prime Minister Saxony, Michael Kretschmer. The group responsible for that attack has about 130 sympathizers with the far-right opposition.

Lauterbach, who said despite the kidnapping plot, he would continue to work, warned that more threats were possible. “This shows that the COVID protests are not just radicalized,” he said on Thursday, according to Reuters. “But this is not just COVID.”