News report | 26-05-2025 | 16:50

Method of Operation
The suspect posed as a police officer over the phone. He told mostly elderly victims a fabricated story about an arrest in their area and that their address had appeared on a potential victim list during the police investigation. Therefore, a police colleague would come by to secure valuable items and money. The suspect pressured the victims with his method and deliberately instilled fear in them.

Investigation
Several people ultimately filed a report of fraud. The police then initiated an investigation. They encountered a frequently used telephone device. A wiretap on this number recorded various fraud attempts using the same method. The suspect came into view through intercepted phone traffic. The phone device was detected at the suspects residence. Through observation, it became clear that whenever the phone signal returned to this address, the suspect would always arrive home.

Suspicion
This raises the suspicion that the suspect is involved in the frauds committed with this device. The subsequent house search supports this suspicion: on two phones belonging to the suspect, the police found search queries and notes linked to the various reports of fraud. In the suspects home, the police also found expensive branded clothing worth nearly €9,000 without the suspect having a verifiable legal income. This raises the suspicion of money laundering.

Sentence Demand
The public prosecutor emphasized the seriousness of the facts during the hearing: ‘The frauds presented here are very close to the victims. The victims are at home, in their own familiar environment, when they receive a call from someone posing as the police. By someone who takes the time to gain their trust, asking about valuables and essentially searching in the homes of the victims they are on the line with. Are there jewelry? Is there money? The ‘caller’ comes in through the phone line, the ‘collectors’ then actually enter the home and intensify the search for various valuable items.
When I read the pages-long transcripts of the fraud conversations, I felt sick. We are all familiar with the script of this fraud method, but reading it written out emphasizes the seriousness of this fraud method. With patience, kindness, and instilling fear, victims are convinced to hand over their most precious possessions to people they believe they can trust. Often, this involves heirlooms from deceased loved ones.
Therefore, these are not the frauds our guidelines cover, which only carry weeks of imprisonment in cases of repeated offenses. These facts resemble a burglary: instead of a crowbar, the fraudster uses a phone.
This form of fraud impacts the trust people have in the real police, but also the speed at which the police can do their work. Valuable time in crisis situations is lost because people simply do not dare to cooperate with the police.
Taking everything into account, the public prosecutor arrives at a sentence demand of 30 months, 5 months per completed fraud. This also takes into account the attempts at fraud, the money laundering, and the recidivism.
The suspect himself previously did not want to testify but indicated during the hearing that he was only peripherally involved. The public prosecutor considers this implausible given the content of the file.

Note
Such tricks are increasingly being used. So-called bank employees who call about worrying transactions, after which victims raise limits and hand over bank cards with PIN codes, under the false assumption that they are doing the right thing. Or so-called police officers who call about crime in the area and come to collect items to safely store in a police vault. All nonsense, but told in such a sophisticated way while the victims are put under such pressure that this form of crime unfortunately still pays off.