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Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser at »Aktenzeichen XY«
Photograph:
picture alliance /dpa / Securetel / ZDF
Close your eyes for a moment and imagine that you are Nancy Faeser. Or, it doesn't matter for our experimental arrangement, you would at least be mistaken for the Federal Minister of the Interior due to persistent mix-up comedic circumstances and therefore, despite your persistent denials, all sorts of wrangling and nagging, you were carted to the studio of "Aktenzeichen XY", where you were immediately featured in a special broadcast on the subject of "Caution, fraud! « should occur. Your persistent attempts at clarification remain unheard of, you are only silently handed TV-adequate seat pumps and a sheath dress in the back. You eventually surrender to your fate and decide to just go with the flow.
You sit down in the studio on your assigned place in the expert backdrop and watch the first film. A "sporty engineer" first falls in love with his Chinese colleague, who of course shows him how to handle chopsticks properly during his lunch break, because what else should you talk about with a Chinese colleague? When the colleague quits at some point and leaves the company, he naturally does not ask her for her phone number, although she also seems to like him, but registers with a Chinese chat portal, where he quickly lets himself be soaped up by a scammer with the barely conspicuous scammer's name Yushi Yang. The mean YY lures the engineer into a Bitcoin trading scam, even a video chat in dubious lighting conditions does not make him suspicious, which is understandable, because in between he keeps asking his dog if he thinks that the thing is hare-clean, and the dog, not the brightest in Bitcoin and relationship matters, barks his okay every time. Lassie turns over in her grave, and bang, his master has squandered all his savings.
»
This can happen to anyone and at any time
«They sigh, but in the meantime they allow themselves to be addressed as "Madam Minister" without contradiction and powdered again. They even have to smile for a moment when moderator Rudi Cerne uses classic motty file number XY vocabulary such as "Schindluder" and warns against the "bad boys". The next clip is about the grandchild trick modernized into a "shock call", in which an Eastern European gang, but operating without an accent, pretends in a dramatic telephone call to an unsuspecting elderly woman with a well-filled jewelry box that a relative of hers has been involved in a fatal car accident and now needs 70,000 euros bail from them to get out of this mess, whereupon the dabbed not only her designer ring with Tahitian pearl but even offers their high-quality porcelain service.
Then it gets hectic for a moment, because now it's your turn, or Nancy Faeser, which doesn't make any difference to you right now. Rudi Cerne wants to know how you feel when you see these cases of fraud, and you say what probably every person would say, namely that it makes you really angry. What advice do you have for the victims of such machinations? » There's no reason to be ashamed at all," you improvise, "it can happen to anyone, at any time," you add boldly, thinking to yourself that you would probably become skeptical yourself if your dog were to encourage you to engage in bitcoin chatter with a Chatchinese with euphoric howls.
Moderator Cerne then wants to know from you whether you, especially as a mother, also talk about such scams in the family. Of course, you say, now quite well-established in your role as an expert on the Federal Minister of the Interior, you would regularly warn your mother's friends against such scams. And why do you want to make fraud your top priority now? » This affects people in their very own environment, at home," you say, "it drives me to take tougher action against it.
«Windy Apartment Door Bag Cutter
It went quite well, you think afterwards, you should immediately substantiate your expertise in a second conversation, but that doesn't worry you much anymore. They watch the next film, in which another unsuspecting elderly woman becomes the victim of a so-called facsimile fraud and lets windy apartment door bag cutters screw on supposedly valuable rinds glued together with glued-on plastic gemstones. The supposedly skilful copy of "one of the most beautiful missals of the Middle Ages" is said to cost 9999 euros. » That's 10,000 euros," the elderly woman hesitates, and then strikes anyway.
»
It's a bottomless mess," says Rudi Cerne, and that's what you think. You stand "for security in Germany," he tells you, and wants to know whether the fight against fraudsters is not hopeless as soon as the criminals operate from abroad. » Fighting crime is never hopeless," you improvise, because you can work together with the countries in question. You are now really into your role and don't even bat an eyelash when Cerne finally asks you how you wanted to take concrete action against fraudsters.
»
I think what is important is to equip the authorities accordingly so that they can also work accordingly," you say and, for your own amusement, allow yourself an old steam rhetoric classic, namely Markwort's trinary tirade: "But what is most important of all is prevention work. We need to educate, educate, educate.
«Then it's almost done. They point out the many volunteer advisors who have supported the elderly, then they watch one last film on the subject of financing fraud, in which, of course, a fake sheikh appears. After all, the victim, who has been fleeced in detail, is conciliatory in the end and looks gently at the pasture area, on which he will not build a wind farm after all. » It also has its good side," he says, "the goats and the sheep can stay now," and with this positive vibe you let the transport service bring you back home.