With the story of Moya Alemu (Nambitha Ben-Mazwi, left) and her son Yaro Alemu (André Nkot Olinga), the Zurich “Crime Scene: Kings of the Night” with Inspector Isabelle Grandjean (Anna Pieri Zuercher) also focused on the fate of migrants living illegally in Switzerland.
After a body was found in the Limmat, detectives Tessa Ott (Carol Schuler, left) and Isabelle Grandjean (Anna Pieri Zuercher) were shocked by the brutality of the perpetrators.
Ruben Jovanov (Yves Weckemann) received the pizza delivery woman in a good mood. A short time later he was dead.
IT expert Noah Löwenherz (Aaron Arens, right) was planning a sabbatical. Justus Reynier (Basil Eidenbenz) was supposed to stand in for him in the meantime. But then the latter was convicted of murder.
Moya Alemu (Nambitha Ben-Mazwi, left) and Yaro Alemu (André Nkot Olinga) were living illegally with their friend Sanaa Mukambo (Nancy Mensah-Offei).
Zurich “Crime Scene” check: What is the refugee situation in Switzerland?
With the story of Moya Alemu (Nambitha Ben-Mazwi, left) and her son Yaro Alemu (André Nkot Olinga), the Zurich “Crime Scene: Kings of the Night” with Inspector Isabelle Grandjean (Anna Pieri Zuercher) also focused on the fate of migrants living illegally in Switzerland.
After a body was found in the Limmat, detectives Tessa Ott (Carol Schuler, left) and Isabelle Grandjean (Anna Pieri Zuercher) were shocked by the brutality of the perpetrators.
Ruben Jovanov (Yves Weckemann) received the pizza delivery woman in a good mood. A short time later he was dead.
IT expert Noah Löwenherz (Aaron Arens, right) was planning a sabbatical. Justus Reynier (Basil Eidenbenz) was supposed to stand in for him in the meantime. But then the latter was convicted of murder.
Moya Alemu (Nambitha Ben-Mazwi, left) and Yaro Alemu (André Nkot Olinga) were living illegally with their friend Sanaa Mukambo (Nancy Mensah-Offei).
A dead callboy keeps Zurich detectives Tessa Ott (Carol Schuler) and Isabelle Grandjean (Anna Pieri Zuercher) busy in the last “Tatort” before the summer break. The movie also told of illegal migrants in Switzerland. How many of them are there really?
No time? blue News summarizes for you
In Zurich’s“Tatort: Kings of the Night”, detectives Tessa Ott and Isabelle Grandjean try to solve the murder of a callboy.The movie is also about illegal migrants in Switzerland. This is because one ultimately important witness does not have a residence permit.This is the last “Tatort” before the summer break. The next new Sunday crime thriller is scheduled for September 13.
The last new Sunday thriller before the extra-long summer break came from Switzerland this year:
In “Tatort: Könige der Nacht” (directed by Claudio Fäh, written by Mathias Schnelting), Zurich detectives Tessa Ott (Carol Schuler) and Isabelle Grandjean (Anna Pieri Zuercher) investigated a particularly socially critical case on Sunday evening.
What was “Tatort: Kings of the Night” about?
The body of callboy Ruben Jovanov (Yves Weckemann) was found on the Limmat. Judging by the injuries, the young man, who came to Switzerland from North Macedonia as a teenager, was stabbed to death by several perpetrators at the same time. He was also probably under the influence of drugs before his death.
In the dead man’s apartment, the detectives not only found a mini surveillance camera, they also came across two men with criminal records who were looking for this very camera. During interrogation, one of them told them about Ruben’s “Suggardaddy”.
The man in question was the respected judge Urs Jacobi (Stefan Merki). As there was juicy footage of both of them, the detectives initially suspected that Jacobi was being blackmailed and suspected him of murdering the boy.
What was it really about?
Parallel to the murder investigation, the crime thriller also told another story: on the night of the murder, bicycle courier Moya Alemu (Nambitha Ben-Mazwi) had delivered a pizza to the now dead Ruben in a largely empty high-rise building in Zurich.
There she also witnessed two masked men removing Ruben’s wrapped body from the building. As she had secretly taken over the shift from her friend Sanaa Mukambo (Nancy Mensah-Offei), she didn’t dare go to the police. It was only when Sanaa died in a deliberate car accident that the police were able to track her down.
Sanaa Mukambo once came to Switzerland as a war refugee from Ethiopia. She had a work permit and was recognized as a refugee. In contrast to Moya: the young woman arrived in Italy six months ago with her son Yaro (André Nkot Olinga) via the central Mediterranean route.
“Her fingerprints were taken by the Italian border police,” explained forensic scientist Noah Löwenherz (Aaron Arens) in the film: “This means that she should have applied for asylum in Italy, but went into hiding after her arrival.” The script was referring to the Dublin Regulation, which came into force in 2013. But instead, Moya traveled on to Switzerland illegally with her son and stayed with her friend Sanaa.
What was the asylum situation in Switzerland in 2025?
According to the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM), three quarters of the approximately nine million people living in Switzerland in 2025 held a Swiss passport. According to the asylum statistics for 2025 (minus Ukrainian refugees with protection status S), the number of asylum applications amounted to 25,781. This was 1959 fewer applications than in 2024. The asylum approval rate in 2025 was 27.1%.
Unlawful stays in Switzerland are recorded by the Federal Office for Customs and Border Security (FOCBS). It reported 14,577 such apprehensions in 2025, which represents a significant decrease compared to 2024 (29,459), 2023 (50,185) and 2022 (52,077). 2449 people were handed over to foreign authorities in 2025.
What happened next for Moya?
This fate also threatened Moya and her son in “Crime Scene: Kings of the Night”: “If she is deported, she will be returned to Italy within six months,” Ott explained in the film: “From there, she will be sent to one of these deportation centers somewhere in Albania or elsewhere and can be deported to her country of origin at any time, where there is war and she has no prospects.” Grandjean added that they could only stay in Switzerland if they “disappear for 18 months first”.
Moya ultimately proved to be an important witness in the crime story: in a line-up, she identified one of the two actual perpetrators. Even if the police didn’t want to believe her at first. The person identified was Justus Reynier (Basil Eidenbenz), who was actually supposed to be trained as a replacement for Noah Löwenherz.
The forensic scientist was planning a sabbatical at the beginning of the movie. But after the end of the eleventh Zurich “Crime Scene”, this is on more than shaky ground.
Who murdered the callboy?
It turns out that Justus Reynier had met law student Marcel De Winter (Tim Borys) on the Darknet under a pseudonym. The two organized drug parties in Marcel’s father’s tower block. At some point, Justus hired the callboy Ruben, gave him drugs too and killed him, “just like that”, as Marcel De Winter testified. Or, to put it in Justus’ words: “Because we could.”
The very moving “Tatort” thus more than clearly showed the power imbalance between two over-privileged and immoral young men and four migrants, the two survivors of whom still had to fear for their future in the end.
Even though Inspector Ott did her utmost to help Moya and Yaro, the two were threatened with repatriation at the end, but Ott and Grandjean deliberately let them escape at the last second.
When will the “Crime Scene” continue?
With “Tatort: Kings of the Night”, ARD is sending the Sunday crime series into an extra-long summer break. Normally, crime thriller fans can look forward to new “Tatort” and “Polizeiruf 110” films until well into June.
The fact that this year’s Erste is already relying on repeats at the beginning of May is partly due to the upcoming Men’s World Cup in the USA, Canada and Mexico. This starts on Thursday, June 11.
The first new Sunday crime thriller on Ersten has been announced for Sunday, September 13 at 8.15 pm. With a total of 19 weeks, this is the longest break in the series’ history. It is not yet known whether it will continue in the fall with a “Tatort” or a “Polizeiruf” first.
Meanwhile, the future of the Swiss “Tatort” is already secure: a twelfth film under the working title “Tatort: Schuldig” has already been shot in 2025. In addition to Carol Schuler and Anna Pieri Zuercher as investigators, Rachel Braunschweig as public prosecutor Anita Wegenast and Aaron Arens as IT specialist Noah Löwenherz will also be back.
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