Investigators from the Vienna State Criminal Police Office (LKA) have put an end to a gang of con artists since 2018. These deprived older women of their savings by pretending to be police officers. At least 200 crimes with a total damage amount of 4.5 million euros were proven to the gang, plus 500 attempts at fraud. The main perpetrator is a Turk (35).
The man himself is not tangible because he is in his home country and therefore cannot be caught despite the European arrest warrant. At the end of June, however, his mother and sister were arrested in the federal capital. As state police president Gerhard Pürstl, the deputy head of the LKA, Michael Mimra, and the deputy head of the investigation department in the LKA, Dietmar Berger, explained on Tuesday, no such offense has been recorded since these arrests.
Before that, the gang was extremely active. The proven acts took place primarily in the greater Vienna area, but also in other areas of Austria, in major German cities and in the Benelux countries. The police assume a high number of unreported cases. In individual cases it was up to 300,000 euros in damage.
The main suspect is a Turkish citizen who studied German in Vienna and originally earned something as a taxi driver. According to the investigators, he may have made the contacts that enabled him to start the criminal business.
The modus operandi, which Mimra described as “mean”, was very simple. In the phone book, the main perpetrator looked for women by first name that suggested senior citizens. The fraudster called them from his Austrian cell phone with a falsified number and made them believe that con artists were after their savings because the police had found a list with the victim’s name on it. Therefore, detectives would come to the older ladies’ homes and take their valuables with them to secure.
The organizer then sent his employees to identify themselves with forged IDs. They took cash, jewelry and other valuables and disappeared. Some of the victims did not even realize or even believe that they had been eaten up by fraudsters.
“They are easy victims who can often no longer assess the situation very well,” said Pürstl. They would have given the perpetrators everything they would have saved their entire life, often the nest egg for costly operations, retirement or nursing homes. Not least because of this, prevention work is so important in such cases that it is made clear to the victims and their relatives that the police will not come into the house and take money or jewelry with them and that they will not accompany people to the bank.
Mimra said that in investigation area five of the LKA a separate group was put together to deal with such offenses. The surveys of the now broken gang have been going on since 2018. A family from Serbia was found who stashed the spoils from the frauds for the main suspect. His sister and mother kept coming to Vienna to check that everything was going well and to transfer the booty to the organizer.
This was done in several ways: Either the money was transferred electronically, or the sister and mother carried cash on their bodies. Prepared bonbonniere boxes were also used. When the investigators learned that mother and sister were expected back in Vienna at the end of June, they lay in wait. On June 30, early in the morning, the two were arrested at a private address in the federal capital. The Serbian family was also taken into custody after a total of twelve suspected gang members had previously been caught. One of the gang’s fellow travelers was sentenced to seven years in prison in Vienna. The arrested suspects are 15 to 62 years old.
The investigations are not yet complete: House searches were not carried out again until Tuesday morning, during which five high-priced cars, a scooter and 85,000 euros in cash were confiscated. However, the – real – police do not have good news for the victims. Your savings are usually irretrievably lost. The suspects did not comment on the allegations against them.
Those: APA
–
