DUSSELDORF. The Minister of the Interior of North Rhine-Westphalia, Herbert Reul (CDU) has admitted meetings with the alleged head of a smuggling ring. “Meetings with Mr B. took place during political evening events and were of a different nature,” Reul said on Sunday Cologne City Gazette.
These involved ‘chance encounters at public events’, although there were also ‘discussions’ and ‘political discussions’. B. gave him the “impression of a conservative person influenced by his religion” at the time.
Smuggling of residence permits and donations to the CDU
“It wouldn’t have occurred to me that he could have anything to do with something that is banned,” the 71-year-old politician said. He saw no reason to doubt the seriousness of the lawyer from Frechen in the Rhenish lignite region.
Lawyer B. is said to have started obtaining residence permits for his business partners from Oman and China in 2015 using forged documents. He did that between 2020 and 2023 donated 53,000 euros to the CDU.
This also includes an individual donation of a total of 29,970 euros to the party in the Rheinisch-Bergisches Kreis. At the time, their goal was explicitly related to Reul’s election campaign. The Minister of the Interior is said to have met B. a total of eight times. (vw)