Arab criminal gangs operating in Berlin have been accused of targetting individual police officers with threats, including spreading rumours of sexual encounters with prostitutes, in order to intimidate or take revenge on officers.

Over the past several years, the power of Arab family organised crime gangs in Berlin has increased substantially as they have largely taken over the city’s drug and prostitution trade. According to a new report, the gangs are now using their power to threaten and intimidate authorities to stop investigations, German media reports.

The gangs have developed several different tactics to intimidate or discredit officers including spreading rumours that certain officers have been visiting with prostitutes or even that they were being given free girls for sex, insinuating they were corrupt.

Berlin police spokesman Benjamin Jendro said “such slander is very stressful for our colleagues.”

Another tactic the gangs use is to cause mayhem during arrests by calling on their large extended families to show up and cause trouble, with the intention being to free their family member in the ensuing chaos.

Direct threats are also said to be employed by gang members against officers which can and has included posting gang members outside police stations and the officers’ private homes to intimidate them. In one case, a Syrian gang in Saxony-Anhalt sent members of the gang to a police station to incite a riot.

While police can request that officers not be identified in certain cases, spokesman Jendro noted “it is not punishable if a member of a clan stands in front of the office.”

Berlin Police Instructor Claims Muslim Recruits ‘Enemy in Our Ranks’ in Leaked Recording https://t.co/ww1wqUwsKb — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 2, 2017

The revelations come only months after allegations that Arab clan members were infiltrating the police force in Berlin following audio leaked from the Berlin police academy.

The unnamed instructor in the audio also complained about cadets from migrant and Muslim backgrounds, saying: “These are not colleagues, that’s the enemy. This is the enemy in our ranks and I have never felt such hostility in this class.”

Arab clans have also been accused of recruiting from Berlin’s asylum homes, promising young migrants easy cash for selling drugs. In some areas of the city, like Alexanderplatz, migrant drug dealers selling potentially lethal synthetic drugs have turned areas into no-go zones, a fact even German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently admitted.