Chilling mystery of 22 murdered women found across Europe is sparked by victim found in Amsterdam wheelie bin
POLICE are searching for the names of 22 women thought to have been murdered across Europe in mysterious circumstances.
The identities of the victims – who died up to 47 years ago – have left cops in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium baffled.
With many now cold cases, the three countries have come together in a bid to finally identify the women.
Interpol has released details of the 22 cases – the first time the group has publicly shared information about unidentified bodies.
So-called black notices are usually only circulated internally among Interpol’s network.
The move – dubbed Operation Identify Me – was sparked by the unsolved murder of a woman found in a wheelie bin in an Amsterdam river.
Her body was discovered in 1999 by local man Jan Meijer, who retrived the bin from the water on his boat.
Cops prised the bin, which had been nailed shut, open and made the grisly discovery of the victim’s body.
She had been shot in the head and chest and part of her body was cast in cement.
Investigators believe she was probably in her mid-20s and “partly western European and partly Asian”, reports BBC.
Detectives battled to identify the woman, but after hitting a dead end, forensic detective Carina Van Leeuwen and her colleagues decided to contact counterparts in Belgium and the Netherlands.
They discovered they all had a list of murder cases with unknown female victims, and decided to compile a list.
Interpol has now released details on each case on its website, including seven from Belgium, nine from the Netherlands and six from Germany.
In another mystery case, a horrified passerby found two hands in Lauriergracht canal, Amsterdam, in September 1992.
Cops then found the victim’s torso in a suitcase in the canal 1km away in Egelantiersgracht.
Days later, authorities discovered more body parts nearby in Prinsengracht – though her head has never been found.
Cops believe part of the reason they have struggled to identify the women is because some are not from the countries they were found dead in.
Carina van Leeuwen and Martin de Wit, from Netherlands police, said: “Most of the 22 victims died violently, and some were also abused or starved before they died.
“Partly because the women are likely from countries other than where they were found, their identities have not yet been established.
“It is possible that their bodies were left in our countries to impede criminal investigations.”
Most of the victims were believed to be aged between 15 and 30 when they died between 1976 and 2019.