Marie Brand und die falsche Frau (2012)

Marie Brand unwillingly witnesses a kidnapping in which someone is also killed. The perpetrators spot Marie and take her with them in their van. Simmel is notified and asked to take over the case. He tries in vain to contact his colleague. Since he had dropped her off very close to the crime scene, he assumes that not only the banker’s wife, Sabrina Münzer, but also his colleague has been kidnapped. While Simmel informs the kidnapped woman’s husband, a ransom demand comes in. Confusion arises when the kidnappers realize they have abducted the wrong woman. Hanna Sommer, Viktor Münzer’s assistant, had attended an appointment on his wife’s behalf—something no one could have known. Simmel and Dr. Engler, head of the homicide division, ask the Münzer family to cooperate. To avoid endangering their colleague’s life, her disappearance is to be kept secret. Marie persuades the kidnappers to let her call in to say she is “at home,” so that her “jealous husband” will not alert the police out of worry. This allows her to send Simmel a coded message by phone, and she hopes he will use it to find out where she is being held. Meanwhile, the kidnappers learn that they have a police officer as a hostage, which renews their hopes of getting the ransom. The police experts manage to decipher Marie’s message. Simmel then goes to the suspected hideout, but he cannot find anyone there. Meanwhile, however, the real Mrs. Münzer is kidnapped and brought to the hideout, where the other two women are being held. Since Münzer is now willing to pay and the kidnappers are distracted, Marie Brand manages to escape. Simmel and Dr. Engler are relieved, and Marie immediately searches the criminal records. A distinctive tattoo enables them to identify Rainer Sperl. He gets into an argument with his accomplice, Bastian Lenz, over the money, knocks him down, and later shoots him. He decides to release Hanna Sommer and demand more ransom. Although Sperl finds a new hideout, Brand and Simmel track him down and overpower him. In the end, it turns out that Sabrina Münzer herself had arranged the kidnapping because she thought her husband wanted to leave her. She had misinterpreted his recent, lengthy business appointments, which his assistant had attended each time. She did not know that the bank was facing serious financial difficulties and that this was why her husband had seemed so different. To avoid ending up with nothing under the terms of their marriage contract, she had planned her own kidnapping. Since her husband had taken out a special insurance policy that would reimburse the ransom in the event of a kidnapping, her guilt was limited. But she could not have imagined that the whole thing would get so out of hand and that two people would end up dead.