Be it a German investor who has indulged in a luxury life with Lucerne financiers (Zentralplus reported), or the owner of a plastering business who has obtained a Covid 19 transitional loan of 110,000 francs (Zentralplus reported) – economic crime is increasing steadily . Even more so in a pandemic, where fear and trust can be better exploited.
By the end of August 2020, the Zug public prosecutor’s office alone had targeted 22 people with suspected illegal Corona loans. The alleged amount of the offense: 3.8 million francs. In Lucerne there were as many as 33 proceedings by the same time (Zentralplus reported). According to the “Lucerne newspaper»By the end of the year, over 50 criminal proceedings regarding Covid credit fraud had been opened in Zug.
In the article in the “LZ”, Claudia Valérie Brunner, who is responsible for the white-collar crime studies at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences, explains that crises are the drivers of white-collar crime. In crises, “criminals have a multitude of opportunities to catch potential victims with new patterns on the left foot.” For example, with fake shops for masks or disinfectants. How high the fraud figures will be will probably only be read in a few years, when the outstanding judgments have all been passed.
