Fake police officers: Victims are waiting for compensation

An Arab-Turkish clan cheated countless people in Germany out of an estimated 120 million euros. Now some of the perpetrators have been convicted. Their victims are waiting for compensation.

After a year of negotiations, the regional court in Izmir, Turkey, announced its verdict against Amar S. and 66 other telephone scammers from a criminal organization: In September, Amar S., one of the main suspects, who was known to the police in Bremen as a multiple offender, was sentenced to 400 years in prison. Other main perpetrators are members of this Arab-Turkish extended family.

In total, the call center scammers, who posed as police officers, were sentenced to more than 1,100 years in prison. The procedure is considered an example of the normally rather difficult cooperation between German and Turkish investigative authorities.

German-Turkish investigations

The judgment of the Turkish court came after several years of investigations – also in Germany. At the criminal police in Munich, cases of fraud by people posing as police officers had accumulated from all over Germany. There, a total damage of over 120 million euros is assumed. In the course of international legal assistance, the results of the investigation by the police and public prosecutors from Bavaria and other federal states were handed over to the Turkish judiciary, which finally brought charges in Izmir after the arrest of numerous gang members in 2020.

Calls from Turkish call centers

From Turkey, the fraudsters had robbed their victims of their assets in Germany with the so-called “fake police officers” scam. They pretended to be police officers on the phone and reported about burglaries in the neighborhood. In this way, they persuaded older people in particular to give them cash, jewelry and other valuables in order to allegedly bring them to safety.

Thousands of people in Germany fell victim to this trick. Now the victims of the Izmir clan are waiting for compensation. In addition to imprisonment, the verdict also stipulates the “return of goods lost after fraudulent activities”. In addition to cash and jewelry, the victims also handed over expensive branded watches to the gang’s collectors in Germany.

A large part of the loot then reached Turkey via couriers, where the authorities confiscated assets worth 60 million euros from the members of the gang. According to the judgment of the district court in Izmir, the approximately 40 victims whose cases could be clearly assigned to the gang should now be compensated from this.

Compensation for victims possible

That’s what the investigating police officers were concerned about: Désirée Schelshorn, deputy head of the “AG Phenomena” at the Munich police headquarters, said in response to the verdict, which she felt was “just”: “What I think is much more important is that our victims are convictions have an opportunity to get their money back from this scam.”

However, the affected victims themselves have not yet been informed by the Turkish authorities about the possibility of compensation after the verdict. This resulted in inquiries from rbb24 research and the ARD political magazine report Munich. In one case, an affected woman said in an interview that she had never been informed about this matter since she gave a statement to the police a few years ago. Now she hopes to return 12,000 euros.

Judge appoints victim advocates

The procedure for returning the damages is to be carried out by lawyers in Turkey who have been appointed by the court. But even there, when asked, they are clueless: “The client I represent has not yet contacted me. Maybe she doesn’t even know that I am representing her,” says a lawyer in an interview with report Munich.

When asked, the Federal Foreign Office said that the German diplomatic missions in Turkey could not influence the proceedings: “Victims must assert their claims themselves or through commissioned lawyers.”

Turkey no longer a safe haven

Many of the convicted call center fraudsters had fled to Turkey after crimes for which they would have had to answer in Germany. So did Amar S., who managed to escape from a cell in the Bremen district court before a trial in 2011 for burglary. When testifying via video link from his Turkish pre-trial detention before the court in Izmir, he described himself as innocent and complained about the difficult prison conditions. The lawyer for two of his accomplices appeared in an interview after the verdict rbb24 research and report Munich shocked in view of the sentence for her client: “We didn’t expect such a result.”

Just a few days after the verdict in Izmir, another network of “fake police officers” was struck against who had also been investigated by the criminal police in Munich: According to Turkish media, assets worth around 30 million euros were seized and 30 suspects were arrested , including the suspected head of the gang in the coastal city of Mersin: Heisem M. – he too is a criminal who fled from Bremen and is a member of the same extended family as the already convicted Amar S..

A long-standing, former clan investigator from Bremen confirmed the family connection: “Same ethnicity, same place of origin, often families, relatives, family members or just related by marriage. They form the construct of the gang. And that is ultimately what is commonly referred to as clan crime .”