Telephone fraud: The perfidious system of “fake police officers”

Tricksters stole millions in Germany in 2022. As bogus police officers, they rob senior citizens of their savings. NDR-Research gives exclusive insights into this criminal system.

Izmir in western Turkey. According to German investigative authorities, the city is considered a center for call center fraud. From here, con artists call hundreds of senior citizens in Germany every day with the aim of ripping them off. They pretend to be prosecutors, bank employees, police officers on the phone.

One of these scammers, a man in his mid-20s, is willing to provide insights into the criminal system of call centers. Anonymous, he calls himself “Mr. Jäger”. “Getting someone to trust you with all their savings with just their voice is quite an achievement,” says the man in the black hoodie on a tourist lookout tower in Izmir.

Damages in the millions

Every year, the State Criminal Police Offices in Germany register tens of thousands of such fraudulent calls. In Bavaria, tricksters stole more than 18 million euros last year. In Lower Saxony 4.5 million euros, more than ever. And the damage is also immense in other federal states: 2.3 million euros in Berlin. 2.1 million euros in Hamburg. 1.2 million euros in Schleswig-Holstein. The list goes on.

“It’s now part of our police work to have to deal with these cases every day. That’s sad enough,” says Chief Inspector Haug Schalk from Braunschweig. As in many places, there is also a police station here that focuses on crimes against the elderly. “The perpetrators that we know of, who set up call centers, actually always had a criminal career in Germany,” says Henning Wilker, public prosecutor in Osnabrück. Many were deported or fled for fear of arrest or execution. The scam of the fake cops is organized crime.

From Germany to the Turkish call centers

“Mr. Hunter”, who cheats people from Izmir, is very aware of this. “We make money, we make money like nobody else,” he says. With his “best degree” alone, 25,000 euros ended up “in his pocket” with the scam. Captured in just five hours. Whether this is true cannot be verified. He has a bad conscience with every act, he emphasizes – that’s also the reason for the interview NDR.

The young man grew up in a German city, in a social hot spot. He has been in Turkey for about three years, first in Istanbul and then in Izmir. A friend recruited him to “work” in the call centers. The money was tempting, he says. Money he spends on parties, alcohol, prostitutes. The savings of German pensioners are squandered within a very short time.

Insights into the structures

“Mr. Jäger” describes in detail how the scam works and how potential victims are spied on. The call centers are well organized. The fraudsters would work in different roles: with so-called “filterers”, “closers” and “pickers”. The “filterer” is looking for potential victims. German senior citizens would be identified with an online telephone book.

The perpetrators specifically searched for German first names that older people have, such as Roswitha, Manfred or Mechthild. The perpetrators use online maps to spy on the neighborhood: they know street names, shops, bus stops in the area, and the address of the nearest police station – information known to those affected, communicated credibly over the phone, used for the fraud. Even the numbers that appear on the phone display are not immediately recognizable as a scam call. So-called “Call ID Spoofing” is used to display German numbers to the recipient, even though the perpetrators are calling from abroad.

If a potential victim is discovered, it will be passed on to a “closer”. “Then he usually closes the matter,” says “Mr. Jäger”. Closing means: the fraudsters persuade the victim to hand over money or valuables to an accomplice in Germany, the so-called “pick-up person”. The procedure and much more that “Mr. Jäger” tells coincides with the findings of German investigators on how such perpetrators usually proceed.

Exchange between Germany and Turkey

German and Turkish investigative authorities are working together to get hold of the con artists behind the scam. Again and again with success. In September 2022, 67 telephone scammers were recently convicted in Turkey, the main suspects being sentenced to hundreds of years in prison. And yet: Such joint investigations cost time, money and there are also limits for German authorities

“It is certainly often difficult to have someone extradited,” says Braunschweig public prosecutor Julia Meyer. “That’s why it’s convenient for us that we can hand over criminal prosecution to Turkey and then be sure that something will happen there, that investigations will be carried out there, that there will be court proceedings and that, in the ideal case, it will even come to that victims get part of their money back”. But even if the perpetrators are caught and convicted, that is still no guarantee of compensation.