German media link the recent firearm attack with the darknet where the perpetrator supposedly bought his weapon. A German politician has called for a crackdown on the darknet trade.

David Ali Sonboly, a teenage gunman who killed nine people in Munich, is supposed to have bought his gun on the darknet, says Robert Heimberger, the President of the Bavarian Office of Criminal Investigation. While commenting his words, leading German newspapers such as Süddeutsche Zeitung and Die Welt indicated that the darknet trade is powered by bitcoin. Burkhard Lischka, a domestic policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, called for a concerted action against the darknet:

“We need to investigate the darknet. We need to give our security authorities personal and financial support enabling them to stop this illegal trade.”

David Ali Sonboly, 18, has killed himself after shooting nine people and wounding four more at the Olympia shopping centre in Munich, Bavaria, on Friday 22 July. His weapon, a 9mm Glock 17 pistol, probably came from Slovakia, as it has a certification mark of that country.

 

Alexey Tereshchenko