cybercrime
Strike against investment fraud – main suspects in custody
The keyboard of a laptop is reflected on the screen: After years of investigations into investment fraud on the Internet worth millions, investigators have landed a major blow. photo
© Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/dpa
An international team of investigators has managed to arrest five main suspects who are accused of large-scale investment fraud. It’s about a loss in the millions.
After years of investigations into online investment fraud worth millions, an international team of investigators has arrested five main suspects. Access took place in Romania and Bulgaria, said Mario Krause from the Braunschweig police department for cybercrime on Thursday. According to him, the men have been in custody since the end of March.
At a second so-called “Action Day”, cybercrime experts from Lower Saxony, headed by the Göttingen public prosecutor’s office in cooperation with Eurojust and Europol, were already deployed on March 22nd. According to the police, investigators took action against suspects in a total of four states. With the deployment, the group of perpetrators was deprived of its leadership. “We are confident that we can also indict the suspects,” said Manuel Recha from the Göttingen public prosecutor’s office.
According to police, more than 100 officers were deployed in Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Ukraine, Cyprus and Israel when investigators first cracked down on the international group in October 2021. In the following months, the perpetrator structures and the individual acts could be further clarified, it said.
The investigators are currently speaking of more than 33,000 victims with damage of more than 89 million euros. For Germany, the investigators assume more than 5,500 people affected and damage of more than 22 million euros. According to the police, one of the cases that triggered the investigation played in Braunschweig.