CATCH THEM IF YOU CAN
A story of crime, forensic science and frustration
This case has been portrayed as the “perfect crime” and in fact, it has not been solved yet. We are talking about the KaDeWe heist perpetuated last January in Germany. The Kaufhaus des Westens (usually abbreviated to KaDeWe) is a luxury seven floor department store in Berlin. It’s the second largest department store in Europe and it has been in business for more than 100 years (it was opened in 1907).
On January 25th, $7 million (€5 million) worth in jewelry and and luxury watches was stolen right in front of the surveillance cameras whose tapes later showed how three masked men slid down from a store skylight evading motion detectors and alarms. As Locard’s exchange principle states, perpetrators cannot avoid leaving traces of themselves at a crime scene and will always take something from the scene with them. That’s exactly what happened in the German crime scene: police found a discarded latex glove on which they found traces of DNA. Surprisingly, the genetic material didn’t match one suspect, it matched two brothers: Hassan and Abbas O. The O. brothers are identical twins and both had criminal records for fraud and theft and some reports link them to a Kurdish-Lebanese gang.
The O. brothers were arrested in February but they were released in March before the case could even come to trial. Neither could be exclusively linked to the DNA evidence. Identical twins are clones from the genetic point of view and just like any living being, identical twins may eventually acquire, during their development, minor mutations in their DNA that might make them slightly different. Such subtle differences, if any, would not be detectable with the methods nowadays admissible in German courts. The court wrote in its statement that at least one of the brothers took part in the crime, but it has not been possible to determine which one and they were set free. To date, no additional evidence has been found and there is no trace of the loot,but at least, if new evidence arises, a new arrest warrant can be issued against the O. brothers.
Going back to Locard’s principle, criminals always leave with something from the scene. So the question here is whether the police were able to obtain search warrants for the twins’ home and other property. It’s hard to believe that there is no other evidence that could link Hassan and Abbas to the crime. What would you have done or suggested to solve this case? Was this “the perfect crime”? Share your thoughts!
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September 29th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
It’s hard to believe someone who could plan such a large scale crime so meticulously and effectively would be stupid enough to leave a glove with DNA evidence at the scene. It just goes to show how hard, or perhaps how impossible, \the perfect crime\ really is.
October 6th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
The glove was left on purpose because they knew they would be suspects and that the DNA evidence would be inconclusive. They were most likely two of three men there. I would be good if they could find the third man . I wounder if any other trace evidence was found on the glove or, other biological evidence was found. In the world of make believe this case would have been solved because one twin had been exposed to a disease and devolved antibodies and the other had not (see Matlock cases) .
November 16th, 2009 at 11:17 am
i dont think that was purposely done by any one and who says that twins DNA was identical.
it can never be the same even in twins and that two in any which ways.
the whole case is very much complex. if the cops found the glove they can find out other evidence also may be fingerprint or hair, fiber, or may be shoe print there.
so its not a perfect crime and no one can even plan for a perfect crime and that locards principle is very much true applicable every where.
tell the cop to interrogate those twins and search there home or any thing related to that may be they’l be able to solve the case.
(India forensic Organization)
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