Munich Police have arrested some 500 drug (predominantly marihuana and hashish) dealer in the area surrounding Munich’s Hauptbahnhof (central rail station) during the past 2 years, bild.de reports today, July 18, 2016, during this past week abendzeitung-muenchen.de and merkur.de had also reported on the subject. The information about the number of arrests comes from theVice-Chief of the Drug Department of Munich’s Police, Hubert Halemba.

The 500 arrests during the past 2 years present an increase of well over double of the arrests that have been made in the previous period. The Chief of the Drug Department, André Remy sees the reason for the increase in arrests numbers in the following: “"For about two years we observe here an additional group that consists mainly of North Africans and people from Iraq and Syria. They deal specifically with cannabis. "

Most of the dealers’ business is done in front of call and betting shops around the central rail station district in the Schiller, Goethe, and Schwanthaler Streets. In the past, the new dealers have conducted their business right in front of uniformed police officers, but since the arrests this has changed and they now show more “respect” for authorities, Halemba says and continues: “They now think that police is involved in 9 out of ten deals.”

Gerhard Berkofsky from the Munich Police told tz.de last week about the drug dealing situation around the Hauptbahnhof: "There is no open drug scene at the Hauptbahnhof. There is also hardly any accompanying crime, which means that you don’t have to be afraid at the station." According to him, that is due to high police presence.

The Department is considering forming a special commission (SOKO) to follow the path of the drugs to the source.