Ice cold shock calls – Fake police officers stole 15 million euros

Ottakring in Vienna, November 21, 2023: Erni H. (name changed) receives a phone call. There’s a man on the phone. And the woman tells a story that goes through her heart and soul. The 83-year-old, it was said during the phone call, which will likely change the elderly person’s life until her death, is being targeted by fraudsters. Someone is trying to withdraw money from your account.

That was unheard of, the retiree told the alleged police officer on the phone. He assured me that he would send someone, a colleague. He will secure the elderly lady’s fortune. Reassured, H. waited for the officer and let him into her apartment. She revealed that she could give him gold jewelry and gold coins.

She has to go to different banks to get cash. The first police officer on the phone gave the elderly person specific instructions on how to resolve the problem. Erni H. had ultimately handed over 100,000 euros to a gang of fraudsters. She didn’t know she was a victim until it was too late.

Fraudsters sit in call centers or at home in their underpants in front of their PC
Change of location to Beirut in Lebanon. The perpetrators, who robbed 284 seniors of 14.88 million euros in Austria alone in 2022, are often here. Sometimes in rented offices where call centers have been set up. Often just like at home in your underpants and with headphones in front of the computer.

Your scam is successful. Too successful, as the head of the fraud department of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Manuel Scherscher, knows. The trend is increasing.

Recently, the central hub for scam calls was busted
It doesn’t matter whether shock calls from fake police officers come after alleged accidents involving family members or after alleged burglaries in the neighborhood. Catching the gangs is not easy. They are located in Eastern Europe, in Turkey – or in Lebanon. Munich police recently destroyed a call center there. Lebanese security authorities arrested nine people. The call center was considered a central hub for fraud calls from fake police officers in German-speaking countries. Also in Austria.

Erni H. from Vienna probably won’t help anymore. Others, especially older students with “old-sounding first names,” as one researcher reveals, should be warned.

Fraud is widespread – and soon with a high share of AI
Manuel Scherscher knows exactly what he is talking about. The Lower Austrian heads the fraud department of the Vienna Federal Criminal Police. And this inevitably has something to do with the activities of the fake police officers. Domestic researchers succeed time and time again in blowing up cells abroad. Negative aftertaste: Others simply take over the “work”. And yet, with major investigative offensives, the federal criminal investigation department has succeeded in ensuring that one or two fraud attempts remain just one attempt.

We are in constant contact with the banks. According to Scherscher about the ‘Kron’, they are the ones who can intervene if too much money is withdrawn.

“If every twentieth person gives money, that is a success”
Incidentally, the perpetrators still operate largely in the same way and the fraud is widespread: “If every twentieth person hands in money, that is a success.”

But artificial intelligence, or AI for short, will soon find its way into this area as well. “The question is not if it will happen, but when and to what extent,” warns the lead researcher. But police are also working with technology companies to jointly research AI and create tools that can nip fraud attempts in the bud.

It is not without reason: cybercrime is one of the fastest growing forms of crime. In 2022, the number of reports of such crimes increased by 30 percent to more than 60,000. There was also a 23 percent increase in fraud – up to 27,600 crimes. At least those are the ones we know. Too many people still do not dare to go to the police out of shame.