Die Spur der Mörder (2019)

In the early hours of the morning, five men are shot dead—or practically executed—by two assailants outside an Italian restaurant in Mönchengladbach. The two then flee in a car and are seen on their way by a cyclist. Detective Chief Inspector Ingo Thiel and his team take over the investigation, which immediately points toward the Calabrian Mafia. They receive support from Carla Orlando, an Italian special investigator with Interpol who is particularly committed to fighting clan crime, since her father was killed by these people. Pietro Giordano, one of the dead men, had already come to the police’s attention in connection with extortion rackets, but so far they had been unable to prove anything against him. Carla Orlando is convinced that all the victims belonged to a clan and were involved in money-laundering operations in Germany. During the forensic examination of the victims’ surroundings, investigators find a very professionally concealed listening device in the car of one of the men killed. Since its technical specifications suggest it could not have come from Italy, they suspect an illegal wiretap carried out in Germany on behalf of the Italian authorities. Thiel confronts Carla Orlando, convinced that she must have known about it. She denies this and promises to make inquiries in Italy to find out more. The cyclist’s testimony and footage from a gas station help narrow down the appearance of the two assailants. However, there is too little concrete information about the vehicle, so this lead cannot initially be pursued further. Forensic analysis of the gunshot residue yields surprising clues. Because, when assailants shoot their victims from such close range, the airflow from the bullet carries away tiny DNA particles from the victims, preserving them, these can be recovered and analyzed. This establishes that the perpetrators were not members of an outsider clan, but relatives on the paternal side of one of the victims. Thiel is not satisfied with the lack of information about the assailants’ getaway car. He commissions an expert report based on the car’s taillights visible in surveillance footage, which identifies it unequivocally as a 1997 Opel Vectra B. The car can now officially be sought. In addition, a photo of the car and an image of the suspected perpetrator are published in the press. Tips from the public lead to a pizzeria in Grevenbroich, but the wanted suspect has already fled to Italy. The getaway car is found at a scrapyard, and DNA traces on it clearly link it to the perpetrators. Thiel thinks it possible that the attack was aimed solely at restaurant owner Pietro Giordano, and that the other four were merely collateral victims. He also hopes to learn about the motives, and thereby identify the perpetrators, through Sofia Russo, who has lost both her son and her brother among the victims. Her father himself headed a clan in Italy for years and has been kept in hiding by his family since escaping from prison. But she is uncooperative and suddenly disappears to Italy as well. Meanwhile, another tip from the public reports that one of the perpetrators lives in Aachen. He is immediately placed under surveillance and arrested. Thiel and Carla Orlando are unable to obtain information from the Italian authorities responsible for combating clan crime about the status of their investigation. They therefore travel to Calabria in person and try to make direct contact. After several attempts at negotiation, Thiel does gain access to the recordings of conversations intercepted in Giordano’s car. The conversations reveal that Giordano wanted to obtain weapons and that an attack on another clan may have been imminent. Thiel is furious that the Italian authorities knew about this and had not sent Germany a corresponding warning. Using data on the clan members and targeted DNA tests on three possible suspects, Thiel and Orlando can now identify the second suspected perpetrator: Salvatore Costa. He is the cousin of Lorenzo Costa, who has already been arrested in Germany. In the wake of the family tragedy, Sofia Russo is willing to testify against the clan, which she blames for her fate and her son’s death. She wants nothing to do with any further acts of revenge by the “family” and hopes that by doing so she can help bring the decades-long clan war between the Russos and the Costas to an end. She tells the police where her father is hiding, but by the time they get there, he is gone. After tireless investigative work, the case is closed after 57 days.