Germany's Most Wanted: New Data Reveals 2015 Migrant Crime Wave

Migrants and refugees in Germany committed around 92,000 more crimes in 2015 than in 2014, German newspaper Bild reported on Wednesday, citing a report from Germany's Bundeskriminalamt (Federal Criminal Police Office, BKA).

The BKA report, called 'Criminality in the context of migration,' shows that migrants committed 208,344 crimes in Germany in 2015, an increase of 79 percent from the previous year.

Around 1.1 million asylum seekers were registered in Germany in 2015, more than four times as many as the 203,000 who registered in 2014; in 2013 there were 76,000.

"The vast majority of asylum seekers commit no crimes," the report stressed. It emphasized that while the amount of crime increased, the rise was less than could be expected relative to the 440 percent increase in the number of migrants and refugees who came to Germany in 2015, compared with the previous year.

The BKA statistics show that while most refugees and migrants came from Syria (47 percent), Afghanistan (17 percent) and Iraq (8 percent), they committed proportionally less crimes. 

'Refugee criminality 2015 — the BKA report,' reported Bild.​

Syrians were responsible for the largest proportion of crimes, 24 percent of those committed. In second place were Albanians, who committed 17 percent of crimes but made up eight percent of those who migrated to Germany in 2015. 

In third place were Kosovans (14 percent of crimes and four percent of migrants), followed by Serbs (11 percent of crimes but two percent of migrants). Afghans committed 11 percent of crimes, Iraqis nine percent, and Pakistanis (three percent of migrants) committed four percent of crimes.

The BKA noted that the number of crimes recorded rose sharply each month until the middle of the year, after which there was "stagnation in the monthly number of cases until the end of the year." 

"Since the attacks on New Year's Eve on Cologne many Germans have asked themselves, 'what impact has the influx of asylum seekers had on the number of crimes?" asked Bild on Wednesday when it revealed the report.

While the sexual assaults committed in several German cities on New Year's Eve by migrants and refugees were not included in the report, its figures show that 1,688 sexual offenses were registered in 2015, 458 of which were rapes or sexual assaults. Sexual offenses were 0.8 percent of the total crimes registered in 2015.

According to the BKA there were 28 murders and 240 cases of attempted murder or manslaughter, almost double the 127 cases of attempted murder or manslaughter in 2014. One of the murder victims had German citizenship, and in two thirds of cases the victim and perpetrator were of the same nationality. 

The most common crime committed by migrants and refugees was theft, 33 percent of crime. There were 85,035 recorded cases of theft, almost double the 44,793 committed the previous year.

Next were "crimes against property and counterfeiting offenses" (52,167 cases) and ticket evasion (28,712 cases), which made up 32 percent of the total. 

In third place were 36,010 cases of "acts of brutality," including "assault, robbery, extortion and acts against personal freedom (coercion)," double the 18,678 committed in 2014.