Europol investigates unsolved gang murder from 1996 in Germany

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Europol is mobilizing teams to investigate the 1996 gang murder of a criminal from the former Yugoslavia who was found shot dead in Germany, the pan-European police agency said on Tuesday.

The unsolved case concerns Nenad Gajanovic, whose body was discovered in August 1996 in a German town next to a stolen red vehicle riddled with bullets.

Europol, based in The Hague, said Gajanovic was “involved in criminal circles” and known to authorities through burglaries in northern Germany.

The German police in the Cloppenburg-Vechta region and Europol are asking the public for help in solving a case “with links to serious organized crime,” Europol said in a statement.

“Despite extensive investigations over the years, the identity of the suspect(s) remains unknown,” it said, and authorities hoped that new information from the public could finally solve the case.

During the ethnic wars following the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the Balkans saw a rise in organized crime as the region was flooded with weapons and drugs.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Mark Heinrich)