BKA Federal Investigation Police Force of Germany published its data On migrant crime statistics for 2024.
It said that out of 1,967 million known criminal suspects in 2024, 172,203 were temporary migrants such as asylum seekers, people granted asylum or other temporary rights of residence, or people living in the country illegally.
This amounts to 8.8% of the total, almost the same share as the 8.9% recorded in 2023.
The BKA gave a figure of about 3.06 million temporary migrants to Germany, a country with a population of about 83.6 million. However, the BKA declined to calculate a percentage based on these totals, saying that its figures for temporary migrants were only the “best available estimate” of the total and therefore insufficient for an accurate calculation.
Nearly a third of the suspects, approximately 697,000, were not German citizens. That larger figure includes people with long-term or permanent residence rights. This group constitutes about 15% of the population as a whole.
The remainder, 64.6% of the suspects, were German citizens.
Ukrainian suspects proportionately less
The BKA noted that Ukrainian temporary migrants displaced by the Russian invasion were less likely to be involved in criminal activities than migrants overall, with this group accounting for about 36% of temporary migrants but less than 13% of suspects.
The second largest group of temporary migrants by nationality, Syrians, made up 21.2% of the group and 20.5% of the suspects.
Nationalities whose share of criminal suspects was higher than those from Germany included citizens of Algeria, Morocco, Georgia, Tunisia, Nigeria and Albania. These countries combined accounted for about 2.1% of temporary migrants, but about 15.5% of this group were suspected.
The share of individual crimes is broadly comparable to the total
In terms of the types of crimes being investigated, the ratio did not stray far from the overall figure.
About 12% of murder cases and 12% of theft, financial crimes and fraud cases involved suspects who were temporary migrants.
The figures range between 8% and 10% for crimes such as sexual assault and crimes such as assault or narcotics charges.
The BKA attributed the slight decrease in the total number of crimes compared to 2023 to the relaxation of cannabis regulations in Germany.
It warned of an increasing proportion of organized crime cases involving temporary migrants, 13% overall, with organized crime in drug crimes and people smuggling at above average recorded levels.
Four out of five suspects are 40 or younger
More than half of the migrant suspects were 30 or younger, and three-quarters were male. It is believed that about a third of the suspects were involved in two or more cases.
People above 40 years of age constitute only 18% of the suspects while the number among migrants is 37.6%.
The BKA reported a 5% year-on-year increase in the number of temporary migrants who became victims of crime, to more than 70,000. This included 212 attacks, of which 23 were violent crimes, targeting refugee reception centres, an increase of 38.6% from the previous year.
Edited by: Jennifer Cimino Gonzalez