Undercover

A life among dealers, murderers, and Islamists: Germany's best undercover agent speaks out. He called himself Murat Cem. But in the files, he is only referred to as VP01. The name he lives under today is as secret as his whereabouts. The man who was for a long time arguably Germany's best and most important undercover agent remained a phantom. Until SPIEGEL reporters Jörg Diehl, Roman Lehberger, and Fidelius Schmid managed to meet him, accompany him for almost a year, and document his incredible life story. In undercover operations for the police, Murat Cem not only caught drug and arms dealers. He solved murders and became the most important police source in the German Islamist scene. However, his warnings about Anis Amri went unheard: he could not prevent the terrorist attack at Berlin's Breitscheidplatz. The police wanted to silence their informant, but now Murat Cem is speaking out. The world should finally learn what he really saw.