With heartbreaking stories about misery through no fault of their own and serious cancer, they surreptitiously gained the trust of their victims: two young women, mostly older men from Munich and all of southern Germany, took more than 300,000 euros. With the help of an attentive Sparkasse employee and an elderly Munich resident who had become suspicious, the police in the Bavarian state capital have now succeeded in arresting two young women operating from Austria in Bogenhausen. The investigations against other possible perpetrators and their backers, who are believed to be from Serbia, continue.
Since March, the Munich Criminal Police Office, which is responsible for fraud cases, has been conducting 65 investigations into this series of fraud cases, which were mainly committed by two suspects. An employee of a Munich Stadtsparkasse branch had become suspicious when a man over 60 he knew repeatedly withdrew large amounts of cash. With the consent of his customer, the bank employee turned to the Munich police. An experienced investigator, the 48-year-old chief inspector Angelika S., followed the scammers’ heels. In a short time she came across numerous victims, also with the help of telephone data. Several of the fleeced men – only a few women were among the victims – live in Munich, one in Planegg, others in Landshut, Rosenheim, Regensburg, Neustadt an der Donau, in the Allgäu, in Ravensburg and in Lübeck. According to the current state of investigation, more than 20 crimes dating back to 2015 are attributed to the women.
The perpetrators mostly fake emergency situations
The scam of women was always similar. They specifically contacted passers-by, mostly seniors, in public places, in front of or even in churches – sometimes a joint prayer was the start. The 21-year-old Serbian and her 34-year-old accomplice, who also comes from the Balkans and has Austrian citizenship, initially asked for work or specifically for small amounts of money. In doing so, they pretended that they were in an individual emergency situation: They said they could not pay the rent. Or a close relative is suddenly seriously ill. In more than 20 cases, the two women managed to maintain contact with the persons addressed and, over time, to gain their trust.
The demands for money became more and more outrageous. The total damage was more than 300,000 euros, and in one case one victim alone gave up more than 100,000 euros. The women always promised to pay back the money – which never happened. Sometimes three women also appeared – the accomplice and possible other accomplices and victims are still being sought. In some cases the women had children with them. The Munich criminal police assume that there was an organized criminal network of backers for whom the women worked.
In mid-June 2022, a more than 80-year-old man from Munich reported to Commissariat 65 and stated that he was in contact with the suspects again. He had been in contact with the suspected women since September 2020 and has handed them over 50,000 euros at several meetings since then. He arranged another meeting with the suspects. The 21-year-old Serbian and the 34-year-old Austrian were arrested in Bogenhausen last Friday around 2 p.m. The two women are currently in custody. They did not have their children with them when they were arrested. They are said to be with relatives in Austria.
Further investigations could reveal whether a specialized criminal gang or possibly even a group of the Western Balkans mafia is behind the crimes. Measured by the number of suspects, organized crime of Serbian origin ranks fourth among foreign groups in Bavaria.