Image copyright EPA Image caption Police officers arrested Sergej W near Rottenburg on Friday morning

Police in Germany have charged a man suspected of being behind an attack on the Borussia Dortmund team bus.

Rather than having links to radical Islamism, he was a market trader hoping to make money if the price of shares in the team fell, prosecutors say.

The suspect has been charged with attempted murder, triggering explosions and causing serious physical injury.

He has been identified only as Sergej W, and was staying in the team's hotel overlooking the scene of the attack.

Two people needed medical help after three bombs exploded near the bus.

Spanish footballer Marc Bartra underwent wrist surgery and a police officer was treated for shock.

Following the attack on 11 April, Borussia Dortmund's home Champions League match against Monaco was rescheduled a day later, which led Dortmund fans to open their doors to stranded away supporters.

Police initially treated the blast as a terrorist attack.

Image copyright EPA Image caption Windows were broken and tyres burst in the three blasts that hit the Dortmund team bus

Image copyright EPA Image caption There has been a heavy police presence near the suspect's house throughout Friday

However, the following week, investigators cast "significant doubt" on jihadist motivations being behind it.

They now say the attack was in fact motivated by financial greed.

Sergej W, 28, would have made about €3.9m euros ($4.2m; £3.2m) from his actions, Germany's Bild newspaper reported.

In a statement on Friday (in German), the German federal prosecutor's office said he has German and Russian nationality.

He was arrested on Friday near Tubingen in Rottenburg, south-west Germany.

The suspect had allegedly bought 15,000 put options on Borussia Dortmund shares - reportedly priced at €78,000 (£65,000; $83,600) - betting that they would drop sharply after the attack.

He would have made large profits if the team's share price collapsed.

Experts have likened the alleged plot to a sophisticated form of insider trading - because he tried to use information not widely available to the public to make money quickly.

He was staying at the team's L'Arrivée hotel in Dortmund on the day of the attack and had moved to a room on the top floor, overlooking the street where it took place, prosecutors say.

The suspect placed the bet on 11 April using an IP address traced to the hotel, after taking out a loan for the money.

What are put options?

A put option on a share or other asset is a contract, which allows an investor to sell the asset at an agreed price, on an agreed day in the future

If the market price falls before then, the investor can then buy the asset more cheaply on the open market and sell it at the higher, option price to whoever sold the option. The investor pockets the price difference

Investigators believe three explosive devices packed with metal pins were hidden in a hedge and set off as the bus passed.

Image copyright AFP Image caption Borussia Dortmund defender and Spain international Marc Bartra broke his wrist in the attack

The bus was damaged about six miles from the Westfalenstadion - officially called Signal Iduna Park - in Dortmund about 90 minutes before kick-off.

Pictures from the scene showed its windows broken and its tyres burst.</s>German police have arrested a man who is suspected of planting explosives targeting the bus of soccer team Borussia Dortmund last week, according to the office of the chief German federal prosecutor.

The man had bought options on Borussia Dortmund's stock before the attack, hoping to make a profit, it said in a statement.

The 28-year old suspect is a dual German and Russian national identified as Sergei V.

The players' bus was heading to their stadium for a Champions League match against AS Monaco on 11 April when three explosions occurred, wounding Spanish defender Marc Bartra and delaying the match by a day.

The suspect is accused of attempted murder, inflicting serious bodily harm and causing an explosion, the prosecutor's office said.

It said he had bought 15,000 put options, or contracts giving him the right to sell Borussia Dortmund's shares at a pre-determined price, on the day of the attack, using a consumer loan he had signed the previous week.

"If the shares of Borussia Dortmund had fallen massively, the profit would have been several times the initial investment," the prosecutor's office said.

The serious injury or death of any of the soccer players could have resulted in such a slump, it said.</s>A 28-year-old has been arrested in southern Germany as a suspect in the attack on the Borussia Dortmund team bus on April 11, the Federal Prosecutor's office in Germany confirmed in a statement.

The German-Russian suspect was arrested by a German federal anti-terrorist unit in the state of Baden-Wurttemberg on Friday morning and has been charged with attempted murder, causing a bomb explosion and aggravated battery, an official press release said.

The Federal Prosecutor's office in Germany says the man is suspected of having acted for financial reasons and had speculated on Dortmund's share value dropping after the attack.

Ralf Jager, the North Rhine-Westphalia state's minister of the interior, said the suspect had hoped to earn millions.

"The man appears to have wanted to commit murder out of greed," Jager said.

The statement from the Federal Prosecutor's office added that the suspect had booked a room in Dortmund's team hotel from April 9 through to April 13 and April 16 through to April 20, the time-frame during which a second leg would have been played at Dortmund had their Champions League quarterfinal draw necessitated it.

The Federal Prosecutor's office in Germany said that the three blasts had detonated at the time the bomber had intended, but that the second blast occurred around one metre above the ground, limiting the damage.

The bombs were filled with metal pins around 70 millimetres long, with one pin found 250 metres away from the blast.

Investigators from the Federal Prosecutor's office in Germany, the Federal Criminal Police and North-Rhine Westphalian state police had been following the lead after receiving information from the finance sector as well as from a bank suspecting money laundering, according to Spiegel, which broke the story early on Friday.

The day after the attack, German public TV station ARD reported that there had been an abnormality on the stock market just prior to the explosions with somebody buying options at the Frankfurt stock exchange.

ARD said that the buyers must "either have been extremely inexperienced or expecting a sharp fall in prices."

Last Tuesday, three explosions near the Dortmund team bus injured two people, including BVB defender Marc Bartra, and investigators later said that the attack could have caused major harm.

It was confirmed on Friday that one metal pin was found in the headrest of one of the seats in the last row in Dortmund's team bus. According to earlier reports, Bartra sat in the last row along with goalkeeper Roman Burki.

Following the attack, three identical letters were found near the scene of the attack and suggested a possible Islamist extremist motive, but investigators had doubts about their veracity. The Federal Prosecutor's office repeated on Friday that there are "strong doubts over a radical Islamist background" of the attack.

It added that another letter claiming the attack for a far-right background received by Berlin-based daily Tagesspiegel on April 13 also raised doubts, and could not be linked to the person behind the attack.

Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke and club president Reinhard Rauball both expressed their gratitude to investigators.

"We hope that by arresting the suspect, the person responsible for the villainous attack on our players and staff members has been caught," the pair said in a joint statement on the club's official website.

Club captain Marcel Schmelzer added that the team hoped "to learn about the actual reasons behind the attack," adding: "For everyone on the bus this information would facilitate the process of coping with it."

Speaking on the club's in-house TV channel, sporting director Michael Zorc said: "My first thought is relief. I hope it helps processing the events."</s>German police arrested a man on Friday suspected of detonating three bombs that targeted the Borussia Dortmund soccer team bus in the hope of sending the club's shares plummeting and making a profit on an investment, prosecutors said.

In a statement, the federal chief prosecutor said the 28-year old man, a dual German and Russian national identified as Sergei V., had bought options on Borussia Dortmund's stock before the attack.

The team bus was heading to the club's stadium for a Champions League match against AS Monaco on April 11 when the explosions went off, wounding Spanish defender Marc Bartra and delaying the match by a day.

Prosecutors last week expressed doubts about the authenticity of three letters left at the site of the attack that suggested that Islamist militants had carried it out.

The prosecutor's office said the suspect had bought 15,000 put options, or contracts giving him the right to sell Borussia Dortmund's shares at a pre-determined price, on the day of the attack, using a consumer loan he had signed a week earlier.

"If the shares of Borussia Dortmund had fallen massively, the profit would have been several times the initial investment," the prosecutor's office said.

The serious injury or death of any of the soccer players could have resulted in such a slump, it said.

Shares in BVB rose 1.8 percent on April 12, the day after the attack, and are up about 2 percent so far this year.

Police detained the suspect in the city of Tuebingen in the south-western state of Baden Wuerttemberg. He faces charges of attempted murder, inflicting serious bodily harm and causing an explosion, the prosecutor's office said.

In March, the suspect booked a room for April 9-13 in the same hotel where the Dortmund team players were staying for their home game against Monaco AS.

Prosecutors said the suspect had bought the Dortmund shares on the day of the attack using the IP address of l'Arrivee hotel, some 7 kilometers south of Dortmund's stadium.

The chief prosecutor will hold a news conference on the arrest at 12:30 p.m.

Security is a hot issue in campaigning for Germany's federal election on Sept. 24, in which Chancellor Angela Merkel is seeking a fourth term.

In December, a Tunisian man killed 12 people when he plowed a truck through a Berlin Christmas market, one of a spate of Islamist militant attacks across France, Belgium and Germany in the past two years.

Last year, Merkel lost support to the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party after opening the country's doors to more than a million migrants. The AfD has since seen its ratings fall while Merkel has regained some ground.</s>A 28-year-old German-Russian citizen took out a five-figure loan to bet that Borussia Dortmund shares would drop, then bombed the soccer team's bus in an attack he tried to disguise as Islamic terrorism in a scheme to net millions, German officials said Friday.

The suspect, identified only as Sergej W. in line with German privacy laws, was arrested by a police tactical team early Friday near the southwestern city of Tuebingen, federal prosecutors said.

"We are working on the assumption that the suspect is responsible for the attack against the team bus of Borussia Dortmund," prosecutors' spokeswoman Frauke Koehler told a news conference Friday.

She said the man came to the attention of investigators because he had made "suspicious options purchases" for shares in Borussia Dortmund, the only top-league German club listed on the stock exchange, on the same day as the April 11 attack.

W. had taken out a loan of "several tens of thousands of euros" days before the attack and bought a large number of so-called put options, betting on a drop in Dortmund's share price, she said.

"A significant share price drop could have been expected if a player had been seriously injured or even killed as a result of the attack," according to prosecutors, though Koehler said the precise profit W. might have expected was still being calculated.

Ralf Jaeger, the top security official in North Rhine-Westphalia state, said the suspect had hoped to earn millions.

"The man appears to have wanted to commit murder out of greed," Jaeger said.

Investigators found notes at the scene claiming responsibility on behalf of Islamic extremists, which Germany's top security official, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, said was a "particularly perfidious way to toy with people's fears."

He said the suspect had been under close surveillance for about a week and that the evidence against him was significant.

"The fact that someone wanted to enrich himself by killing people to influence the stock market is particularly reprehensible," he said.

The suspect faces charges of attempted murder, causing an explosion and serious bodily harm. He was brought before a judge, who ordered him held in custody after evaluating the evidence against him.

She said investigators believe W. acted alone — there are "no indications of possible helpers" — but would continue to probe the possibility he had accomplices.

Dortmund defender Marc Bartra and a police officer were injured in the triple blasts as the bus was heading to the team's stadium for a Champions League game. Bartra had to have surgery on his wrist and arm and is out of action for several weeks.

The team's shares did slide slightly after the attack, but quickly recovered.

Dortmund's first-leg match against Monaco was postponed and the team lost 3-2 to Monaco the next day. Dortmund coach Thomas Tuchel criticized UEFA and top soccer officials for forcing the team to play such a top-level match so quickly after an attack on their team.

Prosecutors said they traced the computer used to purchase the put options to the luxury hotel in Dortmund where the team had been staying. They said W. had also booked a room there and placed three explosives, packed with shrapnel, along the route the bus would take to reach the stadium for their match against Monaco.

"The explosive devices were detonated at the optimum time," prosecutors said, noting that the team bus was equipped only with security glass and not reinforced glass. The bomb shattered several windows on the bus, wounding Bartra. A police officer accompanying the bus also suffered trauma.

The club thanked authorities in a statement. "The fact that no further people were injured or killed was, as we now know, purely a matter of luck," it said on Facebook.

Dortmund captain Marcel Schmelzer said the team needed to learn all it could about the attack.

"This information is important to everyone who sat in the bus because it would make it significantly easier to process (what happened)," he was quoted as saying.

After the three identical notes claiming responsibility for the attack were found at the scene, investigators initially considered the possibility that it might have been the work of Islamic extremists.

The notes demanded that Germany withdraw reconnaissance jets assisting the fight against Islamic State group and close the U.S. Ramstein Air Base in Germany. But experts said the letter's mix of correct, complicated German and obvious mistakes suggested it was a red herring — as were two subsequent claims pointing to left-wing and right-wing extremists.</s>(AP Photo/Martin Meissner, file). FILE - In this April 11, 2017 file photo Dortmund's Marcel Schmelzer, third from right, talks to police officers outside the team bus after it was damaged in an explosion before the Champions League quarterfinal soccer...

(AP Photo/Martin Meissner, file). FILE - In this April 12, 2017 file photo police investigators search for evidence at the hedge near the team hotel of Bundesliga soccer club Borussia Dortmund in Dortmund, Germany, the day after the team bus was damage...

(AP Photo/Martin Meissner, file). FILE - In this April 11, 2017 file photo police officers stand in front of Dortmund's damaged team bus after explosions which injured two people before the Champions League quarterfinal soccer match between Borussia Do...

(AP Photo/Martin Meissner, file). FILE - In this April 11, 2017 file photo Dortmund head coach Thomas Tuchel stands outside the team bus after it was damaged in an explosion before the Champions League quarterfinal soccer match between Borussia Dortmun...

(AP Photo/Martin Meissner, file). FILE - In this April 11, 2017 file photo a window of Dortmund's team bus is damaged after an explosion before the Champions League quarterfinal soccer match between Borussia Dortmund and AS Monaco in Dortmund, western ...

BERLIN (AP) - A 28-year-old German-Russian citizen took out a five-figure loan to bet that Borussia Dortmund shares would drop, then bombed the soccer team's bus in an attack he tried to disguise as Islamic terrorism in a scheme to net millions, German officials said Friday.

The suspect, identified only as Sergej W. in line with German privacy laws, was arrested by a police tactical team early Friday near the southwestern city of Tuebingen, federal prosecutors said.

"We are working on the assumption that the suspect is responsible for the attack against the team bus of Borussia Dortmund," prosecutors' spokeswoman Frauke Koehler told a news conference Friday.

She said the man came to the attention of investigators because he had made "suspicious options purchases" for shares in Borussia Dortmund, the only top-league German club listed on the stock exchange, on the same day as the April 11 attack.

W. had taken out a loan of "several tens of thousands of euros" days before the attack and bought a large number of so-called put options, betting on a drop in Dortmund's share price, she said.

"A significant share price drop could have been expected if a player had been seriously injured or even killed as a result of the attack," according to prosecutors, though Koehler said the precise profit W. might have expected was still being calculated.

Ralf Jaeger, the top security official in North Rhine-Westphalia state, said the suspect had hoped to earn millions.

"The man appears to have wanted to commit murder out of greed," Jaeger said.

Investigators found notes at the scene claiming responsibility on behalf of Islamic extremists, which Germany's top security official, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, said was a "particularly perfidious way to toy with people's fears."

He said the suspect had been under close surveillance for about a week and that the evidence against him was significant.

"The fact that someone wanted to enrich himself by killing people to influence the stock market is particularly reprehensible," he said.

The suspect faces charges of attempted murder, causing an explosion and serious bodily harm. He was brought before a judge, who ordered him held in custody after evaluating the evidence against him.

She said investigators believe W. acted alone - there are "no indications of possible helpers" - but would continue to probe the possibility he had accomplices.

Dortmund defender Marc Bartra and a police officer were injured in the triple blasts as the bus was heading to the team's stadium for a Champions League game. Bartra had to have surgery on his wrist and arm and is out of action for several weeks.

The team's shares did slide slightly after the attack, but quickly recovered.

Dortmund's first-leg match against Monaco was postponed and the team lost 3-2 to Monaco the next day. Dortmund coach Thomas Tuchel criticized UEFA and top soccer officials for forcing the team to play such a top-level match so quickly after an attack on their team.

Prosecutors said they traced the computer used to purchase the put options to the luxury hotel in Dortmund where the team had been staying. They said W. had also booked a room there and placed three explosives, packed with shrapnel, along the route the bus would take to reach the stadium for their match against Monaco.

"The explosive devices were detonated at the optimum time," prosecutors said, noting that the team bus was equipped only with security glass and not reinforced glass. The bomb shattered several windows on the bus, wounding Bartra. A police officer accompanying the bus also suffered trauma.

The club thanked authorities in a statement. "The fact that no further people were injured or killed was, as we now know, purely a matter of luck," it said on Facebook.

Dortmund captain Marcel Schmelzer said the team needed to learn all it could about the attack.

"This information is important to everyone who sat in the bus because it would make it significantly easier to process (what happened)," he was quoted as saying.

After the three identical notes claiming responsibility for the attack were found at the scene, investigators initially considered the possibility that it might have been the work of Islamic extremists.

The notes demanded that Germany withdraw reconnaissance jets assisting the fight against Islamic State group and close the U.S. Ramstein Air Base in Germany. But experts said the letter's mix of correct, complicated German and obvious mistakes suggested it was a red herring - as were two subsequent claims pointing to left-wing and right-wing extremists.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>In a surprising twist, German prosecutors say the Borussia Dortmund bus bomber wasn’t an Islamic terrorist — he was an investor trying to make a quick buck on shares of the soccer team.

A 28-year-old suspect, identified as Sergej W., bought 15,000 put options in Frankfurt-listed Borussia Dortmund BVB, +3.30% on April 11, the day of the blast, investigators said in a statement Friday. Eight days earlier, he took out a consumer loan, they noted.

The Russian-German suspect, arrested Friday in Tuebingen, central Baden-Württemberg, hoped to trigger a slide in shares to line his pockets, federal prosecutors believe.

“A significant share price drop could have been expected if a player had been seriously injured or even killed as a result of the attack,” they said.

Put options give the owner the right to sell a set number of shares at a specific price by a predetermined date — in this case, June 17. The Borussia Dortmund team was due to play against Monaco to try to retain a berth in the Champions League.

German public TV station ARD reported that put options bought just ahead of the attack were so “out of money” — for example, a put option with a strike prices that is lower than the market price of the underlying asset — that buyers must “either have been extremely inexperienced or expecting a sharp fall in prices.”

Shares of Borussia Dortmund fell 2% on the day of the attack, rose 1.75% on April 12, then dropped another 3.8% on April 13. Last week marked the worst week for those shares since Dec. 16, with a drop of 3.16% and the third straight weekly loss.

The month of March for Borussia Dortmund, with a gain of 10%, was the best for the football team since an 18.5% surge in October. Year-to-date, shares are up 6.7%. For the current week, shares are down 2.1%.

The team was eventually beaten 3-1 by Monaco in the game that was rescheduled after the blast.

The attack left one player seriously injured when the windows of the bus shattered. But officials have said the situation could have been much worse if the explosives had been placed elsewhere.

Three shrapnel-packed bombs were placed along the road the bus was taking to get to the stadium. Prosecutors said the suspect also booked into the Dortmund hotel where the team was staying.</s>German police arrested a man on Friday suspected of detonating three bombs that targeted the Borussia Dortmund soccer team bus in the hope of sending the club's shares plummeting and making a profit on an investment, prosecutors said.

In a statement, the federal chief prosecutor said the 28-year old man, a dual German and Russian national identified as Sergei V., had bought options on Borussia Dortmund's stock before the attack.

The team bus was heading to the club's stadium for a Champions League match against AS Monaco on April 11 when the explosions went off, wounding Spanish defender Marc Bartra and delaying the match by a day.

Prosecutors last week expressed doubts about the authenticity of three letters left at the site of the attack that suggested that militants had carried it out.

The prosecutor's office said the suspect had bought 15,000 put options - contracts giving him the right to sell Borussia Dortmund's shares at a pre-determined price - on the day of the attack, using a consumer loan he had signed a week earlier.

"If the shares of Borussia Dortmund had fallen massively, the profit would have been several times the initial investment," it said, adding that such a slump could have resulted if any players had been killed or seriously injured.

In fact, the shares rose 1.8 percent on April 12, the day after the attack, and are up about 2 percent so far this year.

Police detained the suspect in the southwestern city of Tuebingen. He faces charges of attempted murder, inflicting serious bodily harm and causing an explosion, the prosecutor's office said.

It said he had booked into the same hotel where the Dortmund team was staying, and the hotel's Internet IP address was used in the transaction to buy the share options.

Der Spiegel magazine reported that the suspect received weapons training while completing then-mandatory service in the German military from April to December 2008.

It said he was identified following a tip from an informant in the financial sector, and a notice of possible money laundering by comdirect bank AG, a unit of Commerzbank AG.

Security is a hot issue in campaigning for Germany's federal election on Sept. 24, in which Chancellor Angela Merkel is seeking a fourth term.

Borussia Dortmund's Chief Executive Hans-Joachim Watzke told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper he was talking to security experts including former staff of Germany's GSG9 special operations police unit with a view to creating a security unit.

"We will spend a lot of money to improve the security situation of our team," said .

He added that BVB was also considering whether it needed to introduce measures to restrict trading in its shares.</s>Berlin (AFP) - German police on Friday arrested the suspected perpetrator of a bomb attack on Borussia Dortmund's team bus, the public prosecutor's office said, indicating his motive was financial and not terror-related.

Police commandos working on behalf of the federal prosecutor's office "have arrested a 28-year-old German-Russian national, Sergej W.," a statement said.

It said the suspect was hoping to profit from a drop in the football team's share price as a result of the attack.

The incident, which occurred on April 11, saw three explosions go off alongside the team bus minutes after it left the squad's hotel heading for a quarter-final home match against Monaco.

The blast shattered the bus windows, and Spanish international Marc Bartra, 26, underwent surgery after he was hit by flying glass.

A policeman on a motorcycle escorting the bus suffered trauma from the noise.

The explosive devices containing metal pieces appear to have been hidden in a hedge and were set off as the bus passed. The blast had a radius of more than 100 metres.

The match was postponed for a day.

There were three alleged claims of responsibility for the attack, one of which suggested an Islamist link, but security sources questioned their authenticity, with experts suggesting the aim may have been to put investigators on the wrong track.</s>The Latest on the Borussia Dortmund team bus bombing (all times local):

German prosecutors say they believe a 28-year-old German-Russian man suspected of carrying out a bombing attack on the Borussia Dortmund soccer team's bus acted alone.

Prosecutors' spokeswoman Frauke Koehler told reporters Friday that according to the latest information, there are "no indications of possible helpers or accomplices."

Suspect Sergej W. was arrested by authorities early Friday morning in the vicinity of the southwestern city of Tuebingen and was expected to be brought before a judge later Friday.

The suspect came to the attention of investigators because he had made "suspicious options purchases" — taken out a five-figure loan to bet on a drop in the clubs' stock on the day of the attack.

The bombing wounded one player, central defender Marc Bartra, who had to have surgery on his arm and wrist and will be out of action for several weeks.

German prosecutors say the 28-year-old man arrested on suspicion of attacking the Borussia Dortmund team bus had taken out a five-figure loan to bet on a drop in the clubs' stock by purchasing financial derivatives.

Spokeswoman Frauke Koehler says investigators are still trying to determine how big a profit the suspect might have made.

Koehler said in a statement Friday that the German-Russian dual citizen, identified only as Sergej W., bought most of the financial derivatives on April 11, the day of the attack.

The prosecutors said there were no indications that the suspect was aided by others.

A 28-year-old German-Russian citizen was arrested Friday in Germany on suspicion of bombing the bus carrying the Borussia Dortmund soccer team in an attack last week that officials alleged was motivated by financial greed.

A Dortmund player and a policeman were injured in the triple blasts April 11 as the bus was heading to the team's stadium for a Champions League game. Investigators found notes at the scene claiming responsibility on behalf of Islamic extremists, but quickly doubted their authenticity.

Federal prosecutors said the suspect, identified only as Sergej W. in keeping with German privacy law, was arrested early Friday in or near the southwestern city of Tuebingen. He faces charges of attempted murder, causing an explosion and serious bodily harm.

Prosecutors said he had taken out a loan and bought a large number of put options for shares of Borussia Dortmund, betting on a drop in the share price.

"A significant share price drop could have been expected if a player had been seriously injured or even killed as a result of the attack," they said.

Ralf Jaeger, the top security official in North Rhine-Westphalia state, said the suspect had hoped to earn millions.
Germany arrests and charges a suspected perpetrator, 28-year-old Sergej W. The federal prosecutor says the suspect held put options on Borussia Dortmund shares.