In a coordinated action which ran between 27 November and 8 December, law enforcement and judicial authorities from five countries joined forces to take down a criminal network suspected of carrying out ‘shock calls’ to extort money.
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During the operational phase, specialised police departments and public prosecutors' offices from all 16 German Federal States carried out enforcement actions, alongside the German Federal Criminal Police Office and their counterparts in Poland, Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg. Europol coordinated the international activity.
Around 1 000 law enforcement officers, including special intervention units, were involved daily in this operational phase.
Thanks to the large-scale operation led by the Berlin Police, the perpetrators were arrested in the act; extensive evidence was secured and large sums of money and valuables such as jewellery belonging to the victims was recovered.
In total, 27 suspects were arrested, and 74 ‘shock call’ crimes were stopped, preventing some EUR 5 million from ending up in the criminals’ pockets.
Europol deployed staff to the coordination centre in Berlin throughout the entire action period, assisting with the cross-checking of the evidence collected and facilitating the information exchange between the different countries involved.
The scams committed by this criminal network always followed the same pattern.
The suspects would call their victims posing as a police officer, a representative from the public prosecutor’s office or even a family member. They would claim that a family member had been involved in a car accident, and that the victim must post bail for their release.
The investigation uncovered how the suspects had been using information from obituaries in newspapers to carry out their scams.
From the obituaries, the suspects learnt the names of the deceased's children, which they then used to contact the bereaved. They would impersonate a family member, adding credibility to the fraudulent call.
The demands in these cases usually exceeded EUR 100 000.
The following authorities took part:
Germany: State Police (Landespolizei) of all 16 Federal States, Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt);
Austria: Criminal Intelligence Service Austria (Bundeskriminalamt), all 9 provincial Criminal Investigations Departments (Landeskriminalämter) and 9 regional Anti-Street Crime Operational Teams (Einsatzgruppen zur Bekämpfung der Straßenkriminalität), Surveillance Teams;
Law enforcement in Poland, Luxembourg and Switzerland. ■
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