The latest figures from Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) show that suspects from several migrant nationalities are significantly overrepresented in police crime statistics, with women from a number of foreign countries recording higher suspect rates than German men.
As first reported by Nius, the data, taken from the 2025 police crime statistics published last month, uses what the BKA calls the suspect burden rate, which measures the number of resident suspects per 100,000 people in the same population group, excluding children under the age of 8. The metric allows comparisons between different nationalities and between men and women while adjusting for population size.
The figures were requested by AfD lawmaker Martin Hess, who asked the federal government to compare German suspects with the ten leading non-German nationalities in the police crime statistics.
According to the figures, women from Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Ukraine all had a higher suspect burden rate for all crimes than German men. Serbian women recorded 4,361 suspects per 100,000 inhabitants, Bulgarian women 4,322, Romanian women 4,095, Iraqi women 3,833, Afghan women 3,671, Syrian women 3,333, and Ukrainian women 2,963. German men recorded 2,688.
The comparison suggests that rising crime may not just be attributed to the wide-scale migration of adult males from high-risk countries, but to mass immigration itself.
The same pattern is visible in violent crime. German men recorded a suspect burden rate of 265 for violent offenses, a category that includes homicide, sexual offenses, assault, and robbery. Women from Iraq recorded a higher rate, at 409, followed by Bulgarian women at 348, Serbian women at 344, Syrian women at 335, and Afghan women at 319.
The broader 2025 police crime statistics, reported last month by Remix News, showed that non-German suspects remain heavily overrepresented in serious crime categories despite foreigners accounting for around 15 percent of Germany’s population.
Foreign nationals were listed as suspects in 41 percent of violent crimes and 38 percent of murders. They were also responsible for 36 percent of sexual offenses overall, rising to 39.1 percent when the category is narrowed to rape and sexual assault.
The statistics also showed that rape has risen sharply since 2018, while knife crime remains a major concern. Around 29,000 knife-related offenses are recorded annually in Germany, equivalent to roughly 80 per day. In murder and manslaughter cases, a knife is used in around 4 out of 10 offenses.
The publication of the figures sparked outrage among migrant organizations, calling their release racist. Mehtap Çağlar, federal chairwoman of the Turkish Association in Germany, accused Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt of using the police crime statistics to create a hostile atmosphere toward migrants. She argued that crime is driven primarily by social causes and claimed police data can be distorted by heavier surveillance in certain areas and a greater tendency to report crimes involving strangers.
However, BKA reporting has also repeatedly identified foreign and migrant-linked organized crime networks as a major security challenge, including Turkish-led groups involved in drug trafficking, extortion, and weapons offenses. Violent crimes involving Turkish nationals rose by 47.6 percent in 2024 compared with the previous year.
The true scale of crime within Germany’s Turkish-origin population is difficult to measure through nationality statistics alone because millions of people of Turkish background hold German citizenship, including many dual nationals. This means they are counted as German suspects in the official data.
Despite this reality, Berlin continues to struggle to remove convicted criminals from high-risk countries. In the case of Syria, for example, Welt am Sonntag reported this week that not a single Syrian criminal or security threat has been deported since Jan. 21, despite more than 11,000 Syrians being legally required to leave Germany.
The obstacle is reportedly the lack of replacement travel documents. Deportations usually cannot be carried out when the person being removed does not have valid identification, and according to the report, no additional travel documents for deportations to Syria have been issued since the end of January.
Germany’s current government had promised to restart removals to Syria, beginning with criminals and those deemed a threat to public safety. Four Syrian criminals were deported in December 2025 and January 2026, but the process has since stopped.
