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Germany: intelligence powers for customs

01 May 1991

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In the wake of allegations of participation by German corporations in the supply of nuclear chemical and biological weapons and their delivery systems to Iraq the German cabinet has agreed to grant the German Zollkriminalinstitut (ZKI customs investigators) intelligence-gathering powers including the power to monitor telecommunications and mail. The new powers will also permit the ZKI to gather information on German firms before concrete allegations are made. Plans call for the ZKI to be raised to federal agency status: Zollkriminalamt (ZKA), subordinate to the Wirtschaftsministerium (trade ministry). The staff will increase from 200 to 300. The decision to create a fourth federal intelligence service in Germany (after the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) Bundesamt fuer Verfassungsschutz (BfV) and Militaerischer Abschirmdienst (MAD) is a compromise following months of discussion in which German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble argued that the BfV should be empowered to monitor organized crime. The FDP political party, whose position in the ruling coalition in Bonn was significantly enhanced following the 2 December elections opposed increasing the BfV's field of operations. Now these activities will be monitored but by an agency controlled by the FDP Wirtschaftsminister Juergen Moellemann. Intelligence Newsletter, no 163, 13 February 1991 (10 rue du Sentier 75002 Paris).

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