BONN, April 22 -- Germany's infamous would-be extortionist 'Dagobert' finally has been captured, police said Friday, ending a two-year hunt that often deteriorated into farce.
A mobile police commando apprehended Dagobert on Thursday morning after he made a call to demand cash from the department store chain Karstadt, the target of his extortion attempts. Investigators were able to trace the call to a public telephone booth in Berlin, where they found the suspect.
Dagobert -- the German name for the Disney character 'Scrooge McDuck' -- had previously escaped some 30 police attempts to arrest him. He was less successful in his attempts to extort $825,000 from Karstadt.
Police said Dagobert would telephone Karstadt officials or send letters warning that he would blow up stores if he did not receive money. He never got any cash, and he only carried out the threatened bombings on five occasions.
No one was seriously injured in any of the attacks, but the total damage caused is estimated at $6 million.
A concerted police effort to catch Dagobert has cost German taxpayers up to $20 million.
Dagobert's modus operandi was to set intricate plans for cash drops and, although he never received any money, he was a source of embarrassment to police.
Dagobert had police throwing money bags from speeding trains and tracking the culprit by helicopter. At one point a force of 2,000 police staked out every public telephone booth in Berlin in a failed attempt to catch him.
Police did not reveal the suspect's real name, but said he was a 44- year-old Berlin resident.
The nickname 'Dagobert' was originated by the suspect himself, apparently because many of his plots had Disney themes -- once he arranged to pick up cash after a school named for Walt Disney.
His imaginative and sometimes whimsical plans for cash transfers suggested that Dagobert's primary goal was to taunt police.
In a recent telephone survey by a television station in Germany, 61 percent of callers said they had 'hidden sympathy' for Dagobert.
