Task force to combat street crime

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The Task Force to Combat Street Crime (EGS) are special units of the Austrian Federal Police at the nine regional police departments , which were created for the operative action against offenses of the so-called street crime. The term street crime includes in particular property crimes such as pickpockets , robbery and burglary , drug crimes such as trafficking or possession of prohibited addictive substances, and violent crimes such as assault and brawling .

organization

There are nine task forces in Austria to fight street crime, with one task force being set up for each federal state. Organizationally, the task forces as assistance areas are subordinate to the respective state criminal police offices , which in turn are affiliated to the state police departments.

The task forces were created after the amalgamation of the police and gendarmerie in Austria in 2005, with operations starting on September 1, 2005. The legal basis for the creation of the task force was the guideline issued on June 14, 2005 and re-published on January 18, 2007, on the establishment and deployment of task forces to combat street crime of the Federal Ministry of the Interior .

tasks

The task force to combat street crime is an operational arm of the investigative activities of these offices due to their integration into the state criminal investigation offices. This is why the EGS officers are used in particular for operational measures in the area of ​​property, drug and violent crime. These include, for example, targeted surveillance of suspects, patrols on crime hot spots, covert drug purchases and participation in alarm searches. For this purpose, the members of the task force are also regularly on public transport and its immediate surroundings (underground stations, bus stops, transport hubs).

criticism

The task force to combat street crime (EGS) was the focus of the reporting when they observed a meeting between the then head of the criminal investigation department, Ernst Geiger , with an operator of a red light sauna in a Viennese café in the course of the sauna affair .

On February 28, 2018, the premises of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Fight against Terrorism (BVT) and various private apartments were searched by the Public Prosecutor's Office and Corruption Prosecutor , accompanied by officials from the EGS. The reason for the house searches was an investigation into suspected abuse of office. Due to these searches, the opposition SPÖ announced a special session of the National Council on March 9 ; There is a suspicion of party-politically motivated overstepping of competencies, since the EGS is headed by the FPÖ municipal councilor Wolfgang Preiszler and the tasks of the EGS are not in line with the search. The Cobra is actually responsible for house searches .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Street dealers, sauna affair, BVT: What does the EGS do?
  2. ↑ Many questions unanswered. ORF, accessed on March 10, 2018 .
  3. ↑ BAT affair: According to the protocol, investigators took 19 CDs with "current cases" with them. The standard, accessed March 10, 2018 .