The case is “probably the largest call center fraud in Europe,” several authorities jointly explained in Stuttgart. The Baden-Württemberg Interior Minister Thomas Strobl said that the call center fraud that has now been uncovered is “on a scale that has never been seen before in Europe.”
As the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of the Interior, the State Ministry of Justice and the State Criminal Police Office (LKA) in Stuttgart as well as the Karlsruhe Public Prosecutor’s Office announced, call centers were uncovered in four Western Balkan states and in Lebanon.
In a separate statement, Europol said officers from Germany, Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo and Lebanon were involved in the international police operation under the code name “Pandora.” During a raid on twelve call centers in mid-April, 21 people were arrested.
Fraud in many forms
The fraudsters are said to have covered the entire spectrum of fraud variants. For example, they are said to have posed as close relatives, bank employees, employees of the consumer advice center or as police officers in order to defraud victims with threats of punishment, promises of prizes or debt collection demands.
Thousands of people have fallen for the telephone scam networkImage: Thomas Trutschel/photothek/imago
According to the public prosecutor’s office in Bamberg, Bavaria, cyber trading was also one of the scams. Victims were persuaded to buy supposedly lucrative investment and financial products using cryptocurrencies. The fraudsters are said to have operated several such platforms between November 2022 and May 2023. According to the Bavarian investigators, there was damage of around 220,000 euros in this area alone. However, a large number of other cases can be expected.
Attentive bank employee
According to the Baden-Württemberg authorities, the investigation began last December after an attentive bank employee prevented an attempted fraud with damage of more than one hundred thousand euros. The fraudsters’ phone numbers were quickly used for thousands of other fraud cases.
In the same month, the Baden-Württemberg LKA set up an investigation group in which police authorities from Bavaria, Saxony and Berlin were also involved. Based on the results of the investigation, officials were able to warn potential victims of fraud and thus prevent damage totaling around ten million euros in around 6,000 cases. That was more than 80 percent of the cases.
The European police authority Europol was in charge of the large-scale “Pandora” raid against telephone fraudstersImage: Jerry Lampen/ANP/dpa/picture alliance
Since December, several hundred officers have been working in shifts in real time following conversations between the perpetrators and the victims spread across Germany. In total, more than 1.3 million conversations were secured. In some cases, up to 30 conversations were monitored at the same time in order to prevent crimes. A total of 7,500 calls are being investigated.
Raids in five countries simultaneously
During the raids on April 18, several national and international police and judicial authorities carried out searches against the network at the same time. There were missions in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo and Lebanon. The operations were coordinated by a prosecutor from the European police authority Europol in The Hague, Netherlands. During the searches, investigators confiscated, among other things, cash and assets amounting to one million euros as well as electronic evidence that should lead to information “about possible additional call centers and other fraudsters,” according to Europol.
Baden-Württemberg’s Interior Minister Strobl was pleased with the investigators’ success: “Fraudulent call crimes are particularly perfidious and unscrupulous because they play on people’s fears and needs.” The CDU politician announced that action would be taken against “these criminals with the utmost severity and consistency.”
mak/sti (afp, dpa)