The operation began with a bank teller in Freiburg, Germany.When a pensioner asked to withdraw more than 2023 euros in cash in December 100.000, the bank employee was suspicious and learned during the conversation that the elderly woman was in fact the victim of a “fraud by fake policemen”.He informed the real police, who prevented the pensioner from handing over the money to the fraudsters.The Freiburg police arrested the fraudsters and then tapped the victim’s phone line.Investigators soon realized that the phone numbers used by the scammers could be linked to over 28 scams in just 000 hours.Scammer specialties and division of labor The investigation spread, and it was handed over to the regional criminal police of Baden-Württemberg, which was supported by the federal criminal police of Germany.Experts were quickly approaching the centers of this crime – call centers in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo and Lebanon.
Operating from those countries, fraudsters would call potential victims, most often elderly people, and try and often succeed in extracting money from them in various ways: they presented themselves as police officers, close relatives, bank employees, debt collectors, employees of some service, convinced that they had to invest in crypto-currencies, that they won the lottery, offered prepaid cards, and there were also heartbreaking love offers.The criminal network worked in a coordinated manner, focusing in each country on different priorities: fraud related to debt collection was mainly carried out from Bosnia and Herzegovina, calls for fraud related to online banking were made from Kosovo.Fraudsters who offered fake investments called mostly from Albania, and criminals specializing in prepaid card fraud were in Lebanon, writes Europol on its website.By call center against call centers German investigators were able to monitor conversations coming from numerous call centers in real time.From December 2023 onwards, over a hundred officers of the regional criminal police of Baden-Württemberg have been wiretapping the calls around the clock and subsequently provided the content of over 1,3 million nefarious conversations.The police officers monitored up to 30 conversations of different lengths at the same time.The provincial police established its own call center whose primary goal was to prevent fraud.
As soon as it was discovered that someone who received the call could become a victim of fraud, the police would warn potential victims.In just four months, the authorities registered over 7.500 calls that were qualified for the initiation of criminal proceedings.
The police managed to prevent financial losses in over eighty percent of cases – that is, over 10 million euros.A coordinated raid And then, in the early hours of April 18, 2024, the coordination forces from the Europol headquarters in The Hague, the police of Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo, Lebanon and Serbia raided 12 call centers from which fraudsters operated.
More than 60 German police officers, as well as Europol specialists, with the support of hundreds of their colleagues in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Lebanon and Serbia, flooded dozens of residential and business premises.In some locations, there were more than a hundred policemen at once.Result: 39 suspicious persons, 21 detained, 16 detained.The police also managed to obtain extensive evidence such as data carriers, documents, cash and property worth one million euros.A large amount of electronic evidence was also seized, which should enable investigative authorities to obtain information about possible further call centers and other fraudsters.The Ministry of the Interior of Baden-Württemberg informed the public about this international operation on May 2, when it was said that it was the largest network of criminals specializing in telephone fraud in Europe.
More than a million people in Germany fall victim to telephone fraudsters in some way every year.In 2023 alone, telephone fraudsters managed to criminally extract 21,6 million euros in Baden Württemberg, and about 23 million euros in Bavaria.Bonus video:.
