A young couple escapes from a mobile home in a forest not far from Regensburg. The couple is being pursued by the RV driver and his accomplices. The young man is caught, the woman is able to escape her pursuers, Alexander "Gypsy" Scherer and the Bulgarian Bojko Jankov. The next morning the young man is found dead with his stomach cut open. The dead man is Hassan Sabuni, a Syrian refugee who, in the current crisis, sold himself to a drug cartel smugglers: as a "body packer" he was supposed to transport swallowed heroin to Germany. Inspector Ellen Lucas, Tom, Boris and Nina Friedrich, who has just joined the team, are affected by the meanness and brutality of the crime.
The police station was put on high alert when it became clear that Leila Sabuni, the dead man's sister, had to get rid of her heroin balls within 24 hours, otherwise there was a risk of fatal poisoning. Lucas and her team determine that Regensburg is the end point of the so-called Danube route, which is operated by international Bulgarian drug smugglers. The operational head is Bojko Jankov, who bribes customs officers and police officers along the route. Also the German police? Criminal counselor Harald Leinenweber is brought in as reinforcements from Munich. Should he control Lucas, or is the political explosiveness of the case too big? Lucas focuses on finding Leila, and her investigation leads her to a refugee home to live with the fugitive's sister, Qumar Sabuni.
The case spirals out of control when Boris begins investigating on his own and it turns out he's involved in drug smuggling. The situation escalates when Boris is kidnapped. When the money is handed over, there is a deadly exchange of gunfire. As Commissioner Lucas understands why her colleague Boris had to act as she did, she also knows where the culprit can be found. 

A woman burns to death in her car near the Regensburg service area. Inspector Lucas and Judith Marlow, who has returned to the team, quickly find out that it wasn't an accident. The car was set on fire while the victim was still alive. The first hot lead leads the investigators to the renowned plastic surgeon Dr. Alexander Krayenberg, with whom the dead woman regularly had aesthetic procedures carried out. Holger Franz, the husband of the dead man, sinks into deep sorrow and is not really of any help to the investigators. Or is he just faking his sadness? The images from a surveillance camera lead the inspector to the Proell family. Lucas sets his sights on the innkeeper and pension owner Marc, since the victim Carla Franz had taken up residence with the Proell family and they lost track of them from there.
Together with his wife Katrin, Marc takes heartbreaking care of his brother and whirlwind Theo, who was born with trisomy 21. Lucas is depressed when the evidence points more and more to Theo, who is already on record. The victim's mobile phone, which is in his possession, weighs heavily on him. How did Carla Franz get from the pension to the site? And who put her there? With this question, Inspector Lucas moves between two completely unequal worlds: the world of the Proell family, who is struggling to survive on the poverty line, and that of the glamorous plastic surgeon Krayenberg. The doctor's smooth facade cracks when Tom reveals that Krayenberg has hired cheap guest surgeons to work for him.
In order to fully reconstruct the mysterious course of events, the commissioner must first understand that everyone involved has probably contributed their own personal part to the death of the former beauty.