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Berlin / Potsdam (dpa / bb) - The police searched several carpet cleaners in Berlin and Potsdam on Wednesday.
Four men between the ages of 25 and 50 are being investigated on suspicion of commercial fraud, as the police and public prosecutor in Berlin announced on Wednesday.
In Berlin alone there were eight searches of apartments and cleaning companies in five districts from Steglitz-Zehlendorf to Mitte, according to a police spokesman.
There was also another search in Potsdam and one each in Kerpen and Wuppertal (North Rhine-Westphalia).
The search warrants were preceded by extensive investigations by the public prosecutor and police, which, according to the spokesman, began in 2018. The four men on whom the investigation concentrated are suspected of having used a complex construct by carpet cleaning companies to get older people in particular to surrender carpets, some of which are valuable. According to the information, they exploited their insecurity and intimidated them during the visits to the customers' homes.
Then they are said to have charged excessive cleaning costs or not to have returned the carpets at all.
In some cases, customers were also persuaded to buy new carpets with the help of forged appraisals.
During the searches, which, according to the police spokesman, lasted into the afternoon, extensive evidence, including carpets, jewelry and computers as well as cash amounting to 82,000 euros, was confiscated.
The evaluation of the evidence is still ongoing.
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© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210421-99-297298 / 3
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