Oliver Janich spreads crude conspiracy myths on Telegram. Now the authorities in the Philippines are arresting the German. Criminal proceedings are pending against the 53-year-old in Munich.
The German conspiracy ideologist Oliver Janich is said to have been arrested in the Philippines. According to consistent media reports, he was arrested in the early morning German time and is to be taken to Germany. There was also talk of an "arrest" on Janich's Telegram channel, one of the most far-reaching German-language distribution channels for conspiracy stories.
The Munich I public prosecutor's office confirmed that criminal proceedings were ongoing against Janich. He is said to have insulted people via Telegram, called for executions and demanded the killing of German government members, spokeswoman Juliane Grotz said. It is being investigated for insult and public incitement to commit crimes. "We are currently unable to provide any further information for reasons of investigation tactics," explained the prosecutor.
According to "Spiegel", 53-year-old Janich has been spreading elements from the QAnon conspiracy milieu since 2017. During the corona pandemic, he developed into one of the most radical conspiracy ideologues from Germany. In 2020 his channel on the YouTube video platform was deleted. His Telegram channel has around 150,000 subscribers.
Janich has lived in the Philippines for a long time, in Germany he was last resident in Bavaria. In the Southeast Asian country, he is said to have set up a kind of dropout project on the island of Tablas with like-minded people. A spokesman for the Federal Criminal Police Office declined to comment on the case. He pointed out "that we generally do not provide any information on personal data".
