Police and judiciary confiscate fraudulent domains. The perpetrators were identified.
Fake gold traders – The most important thing to start with:
- Working together, fraudulent domains from fake gold traders were identified and confiscated.
- The perpetrators lured their victims with a new customer discount and contacted them by phone.
- In 2019, the group of perpetrators caused financial damage of around 2 million euros.
In January 2020, the Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office (LKA) confiscated fraudulent websites in cooperation with the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office, the Verden/Aller Public Prosecutor's Office (Central Cybercrime Office) and the Bamberg Public Prosecutor General's Office (Central Cybercrime Bavarian Office).
For some time, an internationally active group of perpetrators had been offering precious metals, especially gold, through fake shops on the Internet, which actually did not exist. In 2019 alone, the perpetrators caused financial damage of around 2 million euros in Germany.
The scam of the fake gold traders
Internet users interested in buying were directed to the fraudulent fake shop websites by researching online search engines for lucrative gold offers. The perpetrators lured people with high discounts for new customers, among other things. Immediately after the ordering process, the perpetrators contacted the subsequent victims by telephone for initial confirmation and later sent the payment details by email. The victims were given bank details to which the amount was to be transferred in advance using online banking.
The perpetrator group used previously recruited financial agents to process further payments. Incoming funds were then forwarded to accounts abroad and from there transferred to the perpetrators' target accounts using online banking. During the course of the investigation, the accounts of financial agents were “frozen” in a timely manner and some of the funds were secured several times.
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In a joint operation, the state criminal investigation offices of Lower Saxony and Bavaria, under the leadership of the Verden/Aller public prosecutor's office and the Bavarian Cybercrime Central Office, managed to "take the fraudulent websites off the internet".
Technical measures enabled the German-based programmers who designed and published the fraudulent websites to be identified.
Investigations are ongoing
The perpetrators used so-called proxy and voice-over-IP services to conceal their identity. However, through extensive investigations, the LKA Lower Saxony was able to identify the technical infrastructure that the perpetrators used for the fraudulent online shops and their communication. Searches of the perpetrators based in Germany led the investigators to a server in Malaysia, which was successfully confiscated. This meant that all of the perpetrators' fraudulent websites could be deactivated and provided with a security warning by the LKA Lower Saxony.
The server data is currently being evaluated. Traces of those behind the fraud lead to Turkey, Morocco, Malaysia and Thailand. The perpetrator group communicates exclusively in German. The entire German-speaking region is affected. The investigation is ongoing.
In keeping with the topic: “This is all fake and fraud” – Lena Meyer-Landrut warns against fake advertising featuring herself!
Source: Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office
Article image: Shutterstock / By Alexander Limbach
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