Germany’s most wanted Red Notice serial killer who has been on the run ever since he escaped prison in 1999 has allegedly been spotted on the Caribbean island of Curacao.
Norman Volker Franz, 51, from the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, was jailed for life after killing two people in May 1995.
Franz, who at the time was preparing to enter the Westphalia College Dortmund further education college, was involved in a criminal gang that attacked banks, smuggled Polish cigarettes and traded weapons.
After the gang was blackmailed by their cigarette suppliers, Franz and three other men lured the Poles into an ambush and threw a hand grenade into their vehicle.
Shortly after the bloody act, Franz was arrested at a toll booth in an attempt to reach France with his then 23-year-old girlfriend, who has been named only as Sandra C.
He was jailed for life and started serving his sentence in the JVA Hagen prison in Germany a year later, but soon escaped after sawing through the bars in his cell on 11th March 1997.
Five days after he escaped, Franz shot a security guard named Rudolf Tamm, and stole a cash box with DEM 10,000 (GBP 4,280) from the Dresdner Bank in the city of Weimar.
He also killed security guards Gerd Koch and Peter Seidel, who were about to stow DEM 500,000 (GBP 214,000) in an armoured car behind a supermarket in the city of Halle four months later.
A State Criminal Police Office investigator said: “The security guards had no chance. He planned to shoot straight away from the start.”
Franz was arrested for the second time by German investigators in the Portuguese city of Albufeira on 24th October 1998, where he had worked in the meantime as an estate agent under a fake identity (Carsten Mueller).
He managed to escape once again from prison in the city of Lisbon by cutting through the window bars, and he has been on the run ever since.
But now according to North Rhine-Westphalia State Criminal Police Office investigators, the 51-year-old man, who was added to the Interpol and Europol wanted lists in February 2021, was recently seen on the island of Curacao.
Investigators said: “A German tourist saw a man on the island in April who matched Norman Franz’s description.
“He knows that he is not allowed to be near Germans. They might recognise him.”
The head investigator, who has been working on the case for over 14 years, added: “Franz is a polite, intelligent person. He can be very charming towards women. Franz wants to achieve his material goals, or get money in short. The use of funds is completely irrelevant to him. He’s very, very dangerous.”
The Federal Criminal Police Office in Germany is offering a EUR-25,000 (GBP-20,920) reward for information leading to his arrest.
