A successful raid near Kleve was his downfall: As the police announced, they were able to arrest a suspected online fraudster in the greater Berlin area at the beginning of March. The 28-year-old is said to have defrauded numerous victims nationwide using phishing emails and subsequent calls.
Many people have fallen victim to the scam in recent years: First, the perpetrators send emails or SMS messages with fake links where the recipients are supposed to enter their access data for online banking. Anyone who falls for this will soon receive a call from supposed bank employees who point out alleged problems and ask the victims to confirm a security request. But instead of securing their account, the victims use it to unlock payments to the criminals.
There are also cases in which the perpetrators even call several times to first increase the account's transfer limit and then to skim off particularly large amounts. According to the police, the perpetrator in the current case is said to have manipulated the caller ID so that it looked as if the call was coming from the victim's bank.
High loot causes massive investigations
After an entrepreneur from the Kleve district lost a six-figure sum in this way, the local police department set up a six-person investigation team. After months of research and “massive activity on the Internet,” the police finally came across a suspect from the greater Berlin area. With the help of a special task force from the Brandenburg police, the 28-year-old man's apartment was searched. According to the Kleve police, the officers found him managing his "incriminated accounts and accounts."
In the apartment, the officers confiscated valuables such as gold bars, Rolex watches and high-quality trading cards - as well as over 20 cell phones that were said to have been used to carry out the fraud. Dann Mann has been in custody since then, and investigations are currently underway against other people involved in the crime.
tmk