The only mention I can find is an all-German article in The Epoch Times, which is far from a mainstream source of news [0].
Check for Robert Habeck and Strack-Zimmermann for example which both served over 1000 of those earning hundreds of thousands euros.
The case with Thomas Vierhaus is even quite old but he apperently refused to pay and got a Strafbefehl now which he appealed.
If it's a ruse, they've gone through a lot of trouble.
[0] https://archive.is/mDQ3u [1] https://archive.is/SEyzo [2] https://x.com/ThomasVierhaus/status/1957345154420895946
Apollo News [1] has a Controversies section on the German Wikipedia in which the same Green Party member mentioned in TFA whom the "German Economist" allegedly posted on X about (Katrin Göring-Eckardt) had statements which "were 'distorted beyond recognition' in a TikTok video by Apollo News."
I'd say that their entire business is going through trouble for ruses like these, and that therefore they are not worth our time.
> At a discussion event, Green Party politician Katrin Göring-Eckardt advocated for networks where East Germans who have problems with right-wing relatives can register
The rest of the cited fact check searches for technicalities to diminish Apollo's conclusion that the politician wanted "denunciation of relatives". In my reckoning, the politician's rhetoric was not "distorted beyond recognition"; rather, the consequence of their rhetoric was highlighted.
IMHO, I wouldn't dismiss semi-reputable news sources so easily. I think it's valuable to hear the other side (https://ground.news/blindspot) especially when the fact-checkers/media on my side prefer that I just swallow the party line.
Having read about the controversy in question, it's hard to agree that her words were 'distorted beyond recognition'. She advocated for government centers where Germans could go to talk to a government employee about mean right-wingers, and be provided with propaganda materials (literally, she suggested these centers should provide information on how to respond to right-wing slogans) to counteract the reactionaries. Apollo News characterized this as akin to advocating for the East German practice of denunciation, in which people could report wrong-think to the Stasi. Not much of a leap!