The reasons the article gives for why Frankfurt figures so high in German crime statistics are, charitably speaking, bogus. The actual reasons are:
- Frankfurt is where the German credit card clearing company is located, so pretty much anything to do with credit card fraud anywhere in Germany drives up the Frankfurt crime statistics, and
- Frankfurt has Germany’s main international airport, so Frankfurt gets all sorts of airport-related crime (like drug running or rare-animal/art/fake-Rolex smuggling) that other places don’t tend to get.
Frankfurt isn’t more or less dangerous than any similarly-sized city in Germany. There are certainly not gangs of impoverished immigrants or unemployed youths roaming the place and rendering it unsafe. The suggestion that it is a hotbed of crime committed by “international criminals” from France, Belgium, or (gasp) Luxembourg is too ludicrous to deserve comment.
