The Interpol scam caused damage in Germany and Austria. The fact that suspected backers were caught in India is not only thanks to the police. Threatening-sounding calls caused unrest throughout Germany last year: “Good afternoon, this is Interpol,” is heard on the taped announcement in English, which criminals played to their victims. “Your identity is being misused for fraudulent purposes. For more information, please press one.” Those who followed the prompt thus set in motion a fraud machine.
At the other end of the phone line, supposed police officers, who alternatively claimed to be Europol, Interpol, or federal police officers, urged those called to empty their accounts to supposedly move the money to safety, for example, in the form of bitcoins.
In reality, they unknowingly sent it to the perpetrators. In Germany alone, several cases have been documented in which tricked individuals lost tens of thousands of euros in this way.
British IT expert Jim Browning, who documents his private investigations into the online fraud industry on a YouTube channel with four million subscribers, managed to hack into the Indian call center and pinpoint its location in the Indian capital. Browning sent his findings to authorities in Vienna, making the cross-border police operation possible.
Together with the Interpol police agency and Indian colleagues, Austrian investigators had dismantled the large-scale fraud operation run by the “fake policemen.” Two suspected people behind the process were arrested in India.
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