Petrol bombs were thrown at police and shops were targeted as violent Halloween unrest spread across Europe.

Berlin became the latest European capital to see clashes after more than 3,500 demonstrators, many in costume, took to the streets. Riot police faced flares, fireworks and glass bottles during the disorder.

In Paris, an officer was engulfed in flames after being hit by a Molotov cocktail. France’s interior minister described the attack as ‘attempted murder’.

The unrest came after weeks of student demonstrations across Europe. More than 320,000 people are reported to have taken part in marches across France, where protests over education funding have expanded into a wider movement.

In Albania, student frustration over soaring living costs and underfunded education has combined with calls for Prime Minister Edi Rama to resign. Demonstrations have grown increasingly violent, with protesters throwing paving stones, flares and petrol bombs at police.

German protesters are also concerned about conscription, fearing that the introduction of voluntary military service could eventually lead to compulsory service.

At least 56 people were arrested in Berlin after protesters occupied tram tracks, blocked roads and continued marching into the evening. Police deployed water cannons and pepper spray, while 27 officers were injured.

Youth protest group Gen-Z Regelt! – meaning Gen-Z has got this – had called demonstrations in 34 German cities on Saturday.

An afternoon gathering near Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate remained largely peaceful.

Violence broke out during a separate evening march involving other groups, including large numbers of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, who gathered under the banner ‘Gen-Z has had enough!’

The Daily Mail witnessed one young man being brought down by around ten police officers and dragged away, leaving blood on the doorstep of a shop.

Several other people were arrested, including at least one journalist covering the demonstration.

Demonstrators carried signs reading ‘Time for resistance’ and ‘Merz must go’, referring to Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Chants of ‘free Palestine’ were heard alongside calls for ‘anti-fascism’, as the far-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) continues to gain ground. The party has enjoyed growing support in eastern Germany and won a recent state election in Saxony-Anhalt.

A biology teacher brought a deck chair to Rosenthalerplatz, where the Berlin march began.

He was quickly struck by an egg but did not leave. He told the Mail that he had come to better understand the concerns of his 18-year-old students.

On the scenes of looting at French protests earlier this month, he added: ‘Nobody needs so much luxury, but also, nobody has the right to destroy such stores.

‘I don’t think it’s good what happened there, some people just like the violence.’

By 7.30pm, officers said that all those who refused to go home would face water cannons and arrest. The crowds, meanwhile, chanted ‘shame on you’ and ‘all police are b*******’.

The protesters eventually trickled away, but officers remained on high alert on every street corner in the area.

In Germany, student protests were followed by clashes in several cities, with police deploying water cannons in Frankfurt after officers were pelted with stones and firecrackers.

At least one officer was injured during the unrest in the city, according to the local force.

Police later arrested one person and seized two weapons after the windows of a gun shop in central Frankfurt were smashed.

Officers secured the remaining weapons inside the premises.

As the violence continued into the evening, the force urged anyone not taking part in the protests to stay away from the city centre, warning that Molotov cocktails were being thrown at emergency personnel.

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There were also reports of disorder in Cologne, where around 50 people were reportedly arrested following a demonstration in the city centre.

German broadcaster RTL reported that groups wearing dark clothing had been kicking walls, shouting and throwing pyrotechnics.

Water cannons were also used in Cologne and Hamburg, while officers in Leipzig deployed pepper spray. An officer in Bonn suffered minor injuries. 

In Bremen, police said a march that began peacefully descended into disorder when some participants set off pyrotechnics and insulted officers.

Demonstrations were also held in Munich.

Gen-Z Regelt! said some 120,000 people took part in demonstrations across Germany. Police said the main protests themselves had been ‘very peaceful’.

Andreas Rosskopf, an official from the police union, told the Rheinische Post that officers had intervened ‘very decisively and also forcefully’ where violence did break out, adding that property damage had largely been avoided by the evening.

Gen-Z Regelt! said it explicitly rejected violence in Germany. ‘Extremist groups, anti-constitutional symbols, racism and hate speech have no place with us – no matter from which side,’ it wrote online.

In Albania, footage from the capital Tirana showed demonstrators throwing petrol bombs and paving stones at police.

Protests over insufficient education funding have become part of a wider movement demanding Rama’s resignation, with demonstrations repeatedly descending into violence. 

Meanwhile, French police arrested five people accused of attempting to loot a Foot Locker store in Marseille.

Police in the Bouches-du-Rhone prefecture said the suspects were caught trying to break into the shop’s storerooms.

France’s interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, said around 150 demonstrations had passed peacefully on Saturday, but police had faced an ‘extraordinary’ level of violence from some rioters.

Describing the Molotov cocktail attack on the Paris officer as an ‘attempted murder’, he warned that the night was not yet over.

‘We are fully prepared for those looking for confrontation,’ he said.

The French unrest began with demonstrations by high school students demanding the equivalent of around £9billion for the education system, before expanding to draw in groups ranging from trade unions to Black Bloc anarchists.

Demonstrations have also spread to countries including Italy, Portugal and Poland.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has linked North Korea to what it described as the “biggest hack in history” after cryptocurrency giant Binance suffered an estimated $6.3 billion loss, triggering an overnight crisis among the company’s executives.

A joint investigation by the FBI, the United States Secret Service and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation division identified the malicious North Korean cyber operation as “TraderTraitor,” an elite hacking group.

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by daily trading volume, said on Thursday that investigators had found “additional points of breach.” The discovery contradicted early indications that the attack stemmed from a single compromised laptop.

The company later estimated the total impact at “around $6.3 billion,” placing the incident among the most serious cybersecurity breaches ever recorded.

TraderTraitor is believed to be linked to the Lazarus Group, which drew international attention in 2014 after being accused of hacking Sony Pictures in retaliation for The Interview, a film that mocked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The breach unfolded in real time on Thursday evening, as billions of dollars flowed out of accounts and cryptocurrency executives scrambled to respond.

Insiders described the chaotic aftermath to the New York Times, recounting late-night conference calls involving executives around the world, analysts working through the night in a glamorous New York conference room and founders posting urgent updates on X.

Despite the FBI’s statement, President Donald Trump appeared to question whether North Korea was behind the attack.

Asked about the findings by a reporter at Mar-a-Lago on Friday night, Trump said his administration was still “learning about” what had happened.

Trump said he was “not concerned,” adding: “We don’t know if it’s North Korea — but if it is, we’ll talk to North Korea about it.”

Soon after the breach, Changpeng Zhao posted a series of urgent messages on X, telling followers: “It hurts, but we will survive.”

Employees at cryptocurrency analytics firm Chainalysis gathered in a New York conference room known as the “Silk Road” and worked through the night to examine the attack.

Chainalysis said the attackers had used “laundering patterns we have not seen before.” The firm attributed the breach to TraderTraitor before the FBI publicly confirmed the finding.

Chainalysis CEO Jonathan Levin was on a video call with a senior US official about cyberattacks targeting American adversaries when he learned of the Binance breach, he told The Times.

At the same time, Binance executives joined a large conference call. He Yi, the company’s co-chief executive, participated at 3am local time from Abu Dhabi, despite being seven months pregnant.

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Zhao continued updating followers during the crisis and rebuked Elon Musk after Musk posted a grimacing emoji in response to a message mocking him. “Bad time to troll. Please stop,” Zhao wrote.

Binance co-CEO Richard Teng said in a video message on Friday that the company was “working nonstop” and remained “committed to covering all hack losses.” He also assured traders that their “assets were safe.”

‘This was a complex attack,’ Teng said. He explained that the attacker used a self-destruct mechanism that made it difficult to trace. 

Teng continued that the company would conduct a full security review in the wake of the attack. 

TraderTraitor is no novice when it comes to elite multi-billion-dollar hacks. They became infamous in 2014 after the Lazarus Group, which the FBI believes employs the same hackers as TraderTraitor, leaked internal data at Sony Pictures.

Officials said the hack was motivated by Sony’s release of The Interview, a comedy that spoofed the assassination of Kim Jong Un, who called the film ‘an act of terrorism.’ 

Two years later, North Korean hackers initiated a plot to steal $1 billion from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. 

The scheme was thwarted when bankers realized the hackers misspelled ‘foundation’ as fandation.’ 

In 2022, US officials once again accused the Lazarus group of stealing $620 in cryptocurrency from the video game Axie Infinity.

Then in 2025, TraderTraitor pulled off the biggest-ever cyber-attack of its kind to date: $1.5billion taken in February last year from the Bybit platform. 

They pulled it off by tricking chief executive Ben Zhao into authorizing a seemingly routine transaction that gave them access to the software. 

Binance also has a checkered history with the law. Zhao pleaded guilty to a felony related to his failure to prevent money laundering on the platform and stepped down as CEO in 2023. President Donald Trump pardoned him in 2025.

He was released from prison in 2024 after being sentenced for violating the Bank Secrecy Act.

Zhao was the first person ever sentenced to prison time for violations of that law, which requires US financial institutions to know who their customers are, to monitor transactions and to file reports of suspicious activity.

Prosecutors said no one had ever violated the regulations to the extent Zhao did. Mr Zhao and Binance have been key supporters of some of the Trump family´s crypto enterprises.

The Daily Mail has reached out to the White House and the FBI for additional comment.  

One of the young women Jeffrey Epstein allegedly trafficked to Balmoral Castle aboard his private jet was described in an FBI interview as a “travelling” massage therapist.

The Mail on Sunday understands that the woman may have accompanied the convicted sex offender and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to the Royal Family’s Scottish retreat on more than one occasion.

Police Scotland said last week that it had opened an investigation into the activities of Epstein, Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell at the estate after receiving new information.

The development follows an earlier report by this newspaper that Epstein flew a glamorous model to Balmoral in 1999 to massage Andrew.

The MoS can now reveal that another alleged victim told the FBI in a 2019 interview that she and a third young woman may also have been taken to the royal residence.

A newly uncovered report of the interview says the woman – whom Maxwell called her “little sister” – travelled internationally with Epstein.

When detectives asked about other “travelling” massage therapists, she said one woman – whose name was redacted from the documents – “came to Balmoral and Palm Beach a few times”.

The interviewee said she had met Andrew several times but described having “no strange experiences”.

Other records among the more than three million documents in the Epstein Files indicate that, as recently as 2019, the financier was still instructing victims to visit the Scottish castle.

In a Skype message, Epstein told one woman to “go to Windsor” – referring to the royal estate where Andrew was living at the time – as well as “Balmoral”.

Epstein stayed with the late Queen’s son at the 50,000-acre Highland estate in 1999. His “Lolita Express” private jet, which he used to transport young women and girls around the world, later landed at Edinburgh Airport in 2006 with Andrew and Maxwell aboard.

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A photograph previously presented during Maxwell’s trial showed her and Epstein relaxing outside a log cabin on the Balmoral estate.

The files also included emails discussing the royal residence that are believed to have been sent by the former prince.

One message, sent in 2001, said: “I am up here at Balmoral Summer Camp for the Royal Family.”

The sender, who signed off as “A xxx”, added: “Have you found me some new inappropriate friends?”

Police Scotland said in a statement: “We have received information and active inquiries are ongoing, but these are at a very early stage.” Members of the Royal Family traditionally spend the summer at Balmoral, where Queen Elizabeth II died in 2022.

In January, the MoS reported that Andrew was said to have personally greeted Epstein, Maxwell and a 25-year-old model when they arrived at Balmoral in 1999, later entertaining them with a picnic.

The woman, who said Epstein was grooming her to become one of his sex slaves, claimed she had been instructed to massage Andrew during the visit. She said she refused, explaining: “It felt weird and I didn’t want to.”

At least nine British police forces have ongoing investigations or reviews into potential crimes linked to Epstein and his associates, including Andrew.

In February, the disgraced royal was arrested on his 66th birthday on suspicion of misconduct in public office and spent 12 hours being questioned in a Norfolk police station. It was said he had shared with Epstein sensitive reports from his time as trade envoy.

Earlier this month it emerged that the search warrants used to raid Royal Lodge and Wood Farm at Sandringham had been unlawful.

The applications were made using the wrong paperwork, but police have applied to retain the evidence.

Andrew has always denied any wrongdoing.

The latest discovery has transformed the case.

What began last week with shock and skepticism—after Thomas Markle Jr said he had found a cache of child sexual abuse material at his father’s home in the Philippines—has now escalated into widespread revulsion and alarm.

Following that initial report, Samantha Markle, Meghan’s half-sister, alleged that her brother may have planted the material.

“There is no merit in these disgusting allegations whatsoever and my brother is disgusting for making them up,” she told the Daily Mail. “He wants to destroy our dad. Shame on him.”

Thomas Markle Sr also rejected the claims, describing them as “sick lies.”

However, the Daily Mail’s discovery this week of a second cache of alleged child sexual abuse material in a storage unit belonging to Thomas Markle Sr in Mexico has intensified the scrutiny.

The material, which has been brought to the attention of the FBI, reportedly included:

– A black-and-white photograph showing Markle Sr seated on a bed with his left arm around a female who appears conspicuously young. He is holding a lit cigarette in his right hand, while both individuals are clothed and he looks directly at the camera, raising questions about who else may have been present in the bedroom.

– Additional photographs of the same female, naked and posing alone in sexually suggestive positions in the same room.

– An image from Pretty Baby, the 1978 film featuring Brooke Shields at age 11 as a young girl raised in a brothel and groomed to become a child prostitute. The movie was based on a true story.

– More than 50 videotapes, including titles such as “Boys — Brother and Sister — Russian XX” and “Manila Nites.”

– Several books and magazines, among them The Invisible Children: Child Prostitution in America, West Germany and Great Britain.

Investigations are now taking place in the United States, Mexico, the Philippines and the UK. In London, the Metropolitan Police have referred themselves to a government watchdog over their handling of a 2019 letter from Thomas Markle Sr’s late former wife, Roslyn Loveless, which alleged that he had a sexual interest in children.

Loveless, who struggled with alcoholism, divorced Thomas Markle in 1975. She died in 2024.

One day after reports of the disturbing discovery in the Philippines emerged last week, Meghan issued a statement saying that the Metropolitan Police had shared Loveless’s letter with her and Harry in 2019.

“I am deeply distressed at the news that has come to light in the last 24 hours,” Meghan said. “My thoughts are with any children who may have been harmed.”

On Thursday, the Metropolitan Police acknowledged that they had decided “not to inform other law enforcement agencies” about the letter.

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The force reportedly could not locate the original correspondence and asked the Duchess whether she had retained a copy. Meghan subsequently provided one to investigators.

Many questions now need to be answered.

It beggars belief that the Met would have shared the letter with the office of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and not also with other more senior royals.

And what about the loss of said letter: Was that truly accidental?

Surely, law enforcement should treat allegations of child abuse with urgency. Was that not the case here?

Also: who knew what, and when?

Markle Sr is in a Florida rehab center, receiving physical therapy since the amputation of his left leg in the Philippines last year.

He did not respond to requests for comment about these latest allegations.

Nor did Samantha Markle, but Samantha’s boyfriend, Mark Phillips, spoke to the Mail outside their home in Florida.

What he had to say will surely not redound to Markle Sr’s benefit.

‘The only statement you’re going to get is that Thomas Markle [Sr] doesn’t even have fingerprints on the stuff in the Philippines,’ he said.

‘He didn’t ever even touch it the whole time it was there. He can’t be charged. [Thomas] Markle never had it in Mexico, either.’

‘The FBI has no jurisdiction in Mexico,’ Phillips continued. ‘Thomas Markle hasn’t lived in the States in 10 years. Even if there was bad [material], the statute of limitations ran out five years ago. This is all bulls**t.’

As for the British Royal Family: There hasn’t been a reputational threat this existential since Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was implicated in the Epstein scandal. Yet the Palace is silent.

King Charles is currently off on a nine-day royal tour of the Caribbean.

Buckingham Palace will surely have to account for what they knew and when.

Did they not do their due diligence when Meghan was poised to marry into the family, at a very high level?

Who is ultimately responsible for a potential failure to properly investigate?

The Royal Family may insist that this latest scandal has nothing to do with them – ‘This is a matter for the Sussex household,’ a royal source told the Mail last week – but as we learn more, that seems inconceivable.