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Team Heldt investigates director Günther Tilski's porn production firm, which tricked even detective Mario Korthals into unwittingly downloading illegally "Lauras Geheimnis", triggered by innocent sites on gardening and so on, as Ahmed finds out. Reputed Tiberius Stranach's law firm offers all victims a hefty settlement to avoid prosecution. Stranach and client Tilski plead ignorance. Heldt and Grün each tackle the case in their own style. The trail leads to anonymous hacker "Mighty Goliath", who is head over heals for porn lead actress Laura Lasziv. Cracking the case now requires finding the middle man/men and Stranach's angle.

Truck mechanic Erol Yildiz survives a nightly shooting. In the nineties, punker future cop Heldt belonged to the pauper motor gang "Rats", wealthy Yildiz to the bitter rival "Bochum Boys", their hostilities he's not eager to share with his team partners. People from their past turn up in the investigation. Nikolas's first love Nathalie, now running a local barber shops chain, is unhappily married to former "Bochum Boy"- Stephan Wenger, Heldts worst teen gang enemy. Heldt's former gang buddy Felix "Fifi" Osterloh now runs his father's car shop, where the possible crime weapon was stolen from the locked gun chest, and employs as car salesman ex-con Mirko Schalkowski, kid brother of Bochum Boys president Tom Schalkoswki, which angers wife Lana, who had an affair with Wenger and is Yildiz's ex. Yildiz may well have been confused at night with Wenger, so motives most be reconsidered, while even Ellen is surprised by lover Nikolas Heldt's dark youth trauma.

Nikolas Heldt stops at night in the forest at the car of shocked Antonia Lange, who is convinced she hit someone, but no victim is to be found, only in a nearby wood, in bathing robe, locally TV-famous 'bath tub king' Erwin König, with a fatal head wound and evidence of another crash, no shooting. König's daughter-employee Stephanie remains icy. Recently fired mechanic Ralf Klose hated the choleric despotic ego-tripper but has a crush on Stephanie. Heldt sleeps at Antonia's who suspects a stalker, notices Klose lurking around at night, and later catches a surprise visitor. Lacking solid proof, Heldt gets rue stickler Mario Korthals to trick Klose and thus discovers entirely different crimes, yielding new motives and suspects. Autopsy shows the victim died in salted water.

Heldt has mixed feeling being the hero of a local club of Bochum hobby-detectives, who analyzes unsolved police cases, whose incompetence could compromise his cases. Then they call on him, as their president, mall detective Markus Mehrling 'Sherlock Holmes', went missing. Members Eveline Willholz 'Miss Marple', Sina Cohrs 'Veronica Mars' and Walther Rotbucher 'Matula', are after the same local serial robber as team Heldt, appalling Grün who fears incompetent lay meddling. Latest victim Cordula Walden chased the robber at night. Heldt and forensic Dr. Holle concentrate on similarities with a similar Bochum 1989 theft wave.

Likeable wine merchant Christian Giezelski is nearly run over by a car passing his home. Heldt and Grün can't sympathize, as Christian's wife Nina took their daughter Hannah to a woman's shelter, claiming persistent abuse. Her buddy there, Doro Laus, provides a false alibi and later makes a false confession. Christian and Nina's brother Florian argue her mental stability requires custody of Hannah being vested in him alone. The cops also look into nosy neighbor Kerstin Schiesser and Christian's vindictive former business partner. Suspicions keep shifting in this case.

Heldt and Grün investigate the failed berry-poisoning of Felix Unger, the activist leading a campaign from a mobile-home with his pregnant partner Mira Trost in front of the villa of real estate investor Mark Groller, who tries to get rid of all tenants in a building, with senior Magda Lohmeyer holding out as stubbornly, despite sabotage more then undoing the unpaid handyman Ruben Freundlich's regular repairs. Local TV reporter Ina Petermann covers the case eagerly. Mark Groller regularly files complains against unwilling (ex-)tenants, his wife Kerstin hates the youngster vandals who bully their son at school, and resorted to bribery. Felix was poisoned with a plant from the villa in an anonymous cheese cake. Magda, donated her life savings to savior Felix, whose campaign and private finances prove fascinating.

Heldt's colleagues and best mates give the games-lover an original birthday present: they all enter Bochum's original, never-solved escape room aboard a converted airplane "Flug des Todes" (Death Flight). Mario Korthals, Dr. Holle, Grün, Ellen Bannenberg, Heldts and buddy Achmed are costumed as pilot, stewardess, air-marshal, first- and tourist class passengers, joined by two outsider: engineer John Kuhl and hairdresser Tatjana Klug who won her ticket by accident. Security-agent Patrick Lessig checks them in, warning to trust or believe nothing, but Achmed soon collapses from claustrophobia, the compartments are locked. After successfully preventing the simulated crash, the team is told s fiend took over control and seeks lethal vengeance. It turns out this threat has layers, only partially part of the game, with a legacy hacker posing the gruesome threat, as forensic deputy Monthomery simultaneously finds out by identifying the knocked-out and replaced escape room executive.

Standing in for Ellen Bannenberg at PTA school trip session, Heldt witnesses a hooded assault on Emily's teacher Andrea Müller. She's contested as chaperon given her open membership of "Transgender Bochum", mainly by attorney Norbert Preuss, father of pupil Marius, the prime assault suspect, whom Andrea rightly presumes innocent. Andrea's former straight partner Sabine Weber hated her transition, but is cleared. The hoodie logo leads to Mike Stankowsky's gym, which sells it exclusively and is used by both Preuss boys. Andrea is nearly ran over by Norbert's car. Graffiti "Das Müller muss weg!" champion the campaign to chase Andrea as unnatural role model.

Achmed's wallet is stolen with Heldt failing to catch the agile thief, but returned at home, lacking only the cash and with a note "SORRY", as happens to various victims all over Bochum, Ahmed even poses for a newspaper article. While Grün, Ellen Bannenberg and Mario Korthals chase a masterly document forger, Heldt trails the honorable thief to superior amateur regional football team SSV BANZHAUSEN, where his nocturnal trap works. The endearing thief is Brasilian Rafael, aged 17, whose family lost their 10 000 Euro savings for a fake opportunity to enter lucrative European pro football, leaving the 'shamed' knave homeless. Heldt helps Rafael escape while student Adam Krämer's fake ID to drink under age helps his team trap the master forger, who ignored this evil use of his work by the fake talent scout, whose identity shocks all.

Heldt can't prevent young Sabrina Bergmann being pushed down a metro stairs, into IC. Heldt is determined to find the culprit, convinced unlike Grün, she was a deliberate target. Security video footage only shows a FC-Schalke-logo on the fiend's hoodie. One such is seen in the car of her overprotective, choleric ex-con brother Michael, who is most furious about her relationship with older ice parlor partner Benjamin Schmitz. Heldt sees them row even at her sickbed. Sabrina demanded distance from both, having been in her brother'' custody after an abusive childhood and foster care. Laura Schmitz, Benjamin's ex-wife who co-owns the ice parlor, also has a jealousy motive. Michael is in anger management therapy and the club badge is found different. Grün checks out Sabrina's employer, fancy hotel-restaurant "Goldene Taube" manager Gerhard Kaiser, whom she threatened with sexual harassment charge, as other men before, and hotel supervisor Stefan Grotte, whom she blackmailed for stealing luxury wine. Laura Schmitz was jealous of Ben's younger lover. Finally Heldt sets a trap.

Driving to the precinct, Heldt notices on the roof of the psychiatric hospital Günther 'Günni' Lawniczak, his favorite comics-shopkeeper, costumed as he believes to be a superhero. Playing along as the fitting sidekick, Heldt prevents him from 'flying off' to certain death, aided by social service year volunteer Samantha Kühlwein and Dr. Ava Nasrim, who treats his bipolar condition and supervises him as participant in a manic-depression drug study. Heldt realizes Günni's inseparable attache case full of first editions was robbed empty. The team suspects Günni's shop employee Falk Lückow, who was drug debts, and ex-girlfriend Irina, who rowed when she accompanied him to the clinic. Günni's memory proves too fragmentary. The team must go undercover as s costumed superheroes, to crack the unfortunate ploys.

The precinct gets an uninvited visit from AI's dreaded "Fränkin" Herzel to investigate complaints against 'abusive' detective Heldt, allegedly bribed in the prostitution scene according to an anonymous tip. Heldt went there only to get client Steve Grimsel's wallet returned discretely by madam Friederike Willms, so as to keep his girl friend unwitting, but was inadvertently slipped 500 Euro cash in his pocket, on video. The team's efforts to clear him can't prevent Heldt's suspension due to amassed indications, notably of drug trade, so he risk arrest. Achmed motivates him to fight back, tracing the false leads to former cop Arne Dehnitz, and hooligan Alex, whom Heldt recently arrested with home-made bomb. How does it all link?

Heldt pays little attention to antiquities dealer and 'seeer' Esther Habeck, who comes tell him she'll soon die by s hand, an inevitable accident he's not to feel guilty about. Driving her home, Heldt says another stone being thrown through her window, soiled in pig's blood which forensics traces to Grün's favorite butchery, Könnicke, where adolescent heir Maik hates being forced to help his widowed mother Anna keep the third generation family firm going. Heldt gets him to confess, apologize and be forgiven, but Esther Habeck insists Heldt's fate remains to kill her, as his nightmares now seem to confirm. Mario Korthals's new 'preventive policing' software SKALA predicts more antiquities robberies, so Heldt must stay on her case, complicated by valuable tobacco boxes she sneakily bought for pittance from the Könnickes.

Convenience shop "Rollo's" is rudely robbed, leaving retired regular customer Eugen Merkroth, who helped out in the owner's absence, badly wounded, yet nothing seems stolen, so it was probably meant to hurt managing owner Roland "Rollo" Dombrowski disguised as theft. Soon released from hospital, Eugen and xenophobic regular customer Carsten Redder tell Heldt about ruthless competition, notably with price-beating Iraqi refugee Haias Al-Omar, around the corner. Al-Omar blames Rollo for recurrent vandalism and racist slur. Heldt finds Rollo an angel of mercy for sick wife Susi and locals, who gather at his shop as a community center. Grün finds out Rollo has troubles with petty criminal Marvin Röschoff. The whole affair proves a tragic misunderstanding.

Under narcosis from an experimental drug, Heldt, who collapsed while arresting most wanted Danish mob boss Bengt Olsen, but operated for appendicitis, hallucinates in hospital, starring an atypical white-costumed angel and conscience version of Detlev Grün. Nikolas can't even convince Ellen, Dr. Holle and the real, strict Grün of irregularities in hospital which he believes to compromise a conspiracy to hide Olsen. Heldts treating physician Dr. Veronika Stöckel is inclined t believe dragon head nurse Gudrun it's a drug side effect requiring a lower dosage. Meanwhile the team works on the disappearance of Katharina Willich during a business trip.

Commissioner Nikolas Heldt starts his career in the Bochum police criminal division in a long-running human trafficking case, using unconventional methods to catch mob baron Felix Bricheaux, for which stickler chief commissioner Detlev Grün wants him suspended. State prosecutor Hinrichs protects him but dies from a cardiac crisis, his successor Ellen Bannenberg grants the suspension during in internal investigation. Felix walks from court after key witness Natalia Sokolowa, whose skin Heldt saved, fails to testify. Heldt gets Bannenberg to help find out what hold Felix has on her, guessing rightly it's a child.

When Heldt attends Bochum's first-ever happy divorce-party, this time in central Bochum's "Endlich frei!", he helps a woman who was nearly robbed. It turns out here's a wave of party goer-victimizing crimes, so suspects include her ex, a car thief, a drug trader, Tine Schütz who organizes such parties all over the Ruhr area and various nightclub staff.

Heldt's 'fatherly' publican and family friend Karl-Heinz "Carlo" Funke is found next to the corpse of his landlord Erich Baumann. Unlike commissioner Grün, Heldt is determined to prove his buddy's claim of innocence despite a violent money row the evening before. Autopsy shows poisoning by exclusive claret, hidden behind Carlo's cooler. Heldt examines dodgy third chess player Sven Lattbeck, and neighbor Dr. Paul, and is suspended, the clock ticking. Although evidence piles up, Heldt keeps examining the neighbors, with some risky help from Ahmed and unexpectedly from prosecutor Bannenberg, who even fakes a syndrome to distract Dr. Markus Paul, the resumed drug provider, while relationships to Spanish cleaner Estefania prove key.

Heldt and Security firm chief Michael Nickel's arrival when the alarm is triggered in Bochum's auction house chases the clever yet clumsy masked robber after a shot to stop chase by Auction master Stefan Mahlburg. Heldt doubts an insider job after spotting a thug at the Nickel house, who seems to scare gun owner Michael's teen son David more, and finds indirect indications the knave must be involved, yet fails to win his trust the boyish way. A second, successful robbery attempt ends in a fatal shooting.

Patrizia Sendel's corpse is a found by a pro playing a cop on a parking lot belonging to the fetish scene, unlike laborer Georg Sendel's wife. She was dressed way beyond their means, part of a lifestyle she also lacked any breeding for, despite Internet sales of worn lingerie. Heldt finds she even attended the city's exclusive country club, without the normal discretion around hunky 'pro instructor' Simon Scheuffele. The case is countered by supervising judge Decker who was client with both. Heldt also finds proof plumber Georg must have found out about his wife's flirt. A recording devise proves useful to set a trap.

Tanking on the way home Heldt is just in time to control an exploding amateur bomb brought into the station by state of the art robot. *Grün fearing a test run, he and prosecutor Bannenberg focus on a lead to chemistry student Alan Barsani, who has a geocaching game alibi. Heldt believes it and makes a mode cars racing circuit friend, car crash-crippled Manuel Unterberg. Other club members like dubious cleaning firm manager Dierk Jager also make plausible suspects, but Heldt must face his buddy's accident's tragic shadow back to his single mother's home where he was forced to move back in due to his wheelchair.

Heldt's car breaks down on the way to a course imposed by captain Grün, so they drop it at slick welcoming mechanic Tobias Wachowiak's cheap garage. Continuing in his loan car, they must stop for the non-fatal crash of Meike Behling to hospitalize her, and hear the breaks were sabotaged before finding Tobias fatally crushed under Heldt's car. Gardening for Meike's generous grandma and landlady and questioning her suspiciously absent boyfriend Thomas Pischzek, Heldt can't resist meddling in Grün's questioning of Tobias's ex Michaela and catching her picking up cash from the garage. A long-running fraud connects both cases.

Heldt returns to his native neighborhood when baker Manni Gießen, a family friend since Nikolas was a troublesome urchin, was pulled out just in time from his bakery, where he was sedated before arson, by apprentice and protege Kevin Patschulke, a paternal lush-abused knave who works out his frustration in a wave of vandalism but swears he would never hurt anyone, least 'second father' Manni. Heldt thus also bumps into his closest youth buddy Markus Koslowski, now a fancy real estate agent, against whom Carlo still warns. Baker's wife Marion is found out having an affair with her sissy beautician. Heldt looses some illusory good memories to work out the truth.

Chinese restaurant owner Wao Huan is found murdered at a pigeon launching spot, with next to him baseball-carrying falconer Monika Hamm, who claims she came to confront grumpy old pigeon amateur Heinz Ritter, who made many enemies. * Heldt sympathizes with native German widow Rita Wao, and traces a pigeon found in the kitchen to pro-dodgy Sven Lattbeck, who plots to tamper with the electronic arrival recording. Heldt finds longtime disappointments most relevant.

Prosecutor Bannenberg wants to lock up Bochumer mobster Magnus Winschewski at last. Commissioner Heldt must save her from a killer at a trap she naively walked into, then is ordered to move in her home as bodyguard, and bonds surprisingly well with her fatherless brat daughter. The crook's lawyer gets him off on bail, but Heldt works on his fiancée.