Remmo crime family member appeals for safe return of Berlin 'escaped lioness'

Firas Remmo, part of clan with roots in Lebanon, is known to have penchant for big cats

Police officers and a hunter searching in a forest for the suspected lioness. Getty Images

A member of a crime family in Germany has made an appeal for the return of a suspected missing lioness roaming the outskirts of Berlin.

Firas Remmo has in the past posted video of himself with big cats though it is unclear if the animal, which was being hunted by police using helicopters, drones and infrared cameras, belongs to him.

The authorities were first alerted to the animal in Kleinmachnow, just outside Berlin's city limits, around midnight on Wednesday when people reported what appeared to be a big cat chasing a wild boar.

Remmo, the son of the family’s head, Issa Remmo, has now posted a message on Instagram, calling for the safe return of the lioness.

“If anyone knows something please tell me then we’ll lead the lioness back into her enclosure before some idiot guns her down,” he wrote.

A member of the Remmo clan is known to is believed to live in Kleinmachnow.

Back in December, Remmo posted a video online of himself and a tiger cub featuring the caption "my new favourite pet", which led to a police investigation.

The eight-month-old tiger had reportedly been borrowed from a circus to use as part of a wedding reception photo shoot.

Earlier this year a German court convicted five members of the Remmo family over the spectacular heist of priceless 18th-century jewels three years ago.

Members of the clan, which has roots in Lebanon, received sentences of between four and six years in prison.

The search was called off on Friday with the authorities saying the animal being hunted was in fact a wild boar.

German media reports suggest the Remmos first came to prominence after being linked to the murder of a restaurateur in 1992.

But they have since been connected to brazen crimes that have embarrassed officials at some of the country’s best-known institutions.

In 2014, a group raided a Sparkasse bank branch in the Berlin district of Mariendorf, opened dozens of security deposit boxes and escaped with jewellery and cash.

To cover their tracks, the raiders blew up the bank on the ground floor of an apartment block.