Munich (dpa / lby) - For years, false police officers from an international gang have excluded unsuspecting people, especially in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. Now 67 men and women have been sentenced in Turkey for organized call center fraud. The regional court in the city of Izmir imposed long prison sentences and confiscated assets equivalent to more than 60 million euros, the Munich police headquarters said on Wednesday. The police estimate the damage to the victims at more than 120 million euros. The verdict is not yet legally binding. The state news agency Anadolu reported on this on Monday.
The leader of the gang left Bremen for Turkey in 2012 and set up the call center there. Telephone operators, also known as boars, called the victims from there and pretended to be police officers in order to lure money and valuables out of their victims with fabricated stories. In December 2020, the leader and other members were arrested in a raid in Izmir.
"According to our investigations, these gang structures are an environment with the highest criminal energy, because the perpetrators do not shy away from serious crimes," said Hans-Peter Chloupek, who heads the special investigation unit AG Phenomena at the police in Munich. The penalties are correspondingly high. According to the police, the boss of the gang received a prison sentence of 400 years and six months, others between six months and 199 years.
Officials from Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg as well as the Federal Criminal Police Office have been on the trail of the perpetrators since 2017. Chloupek spoke of a judgment with a signal effect for similar procedures at home and abroad. "The close cooperation with the authorities in Turkey when disabling such call centers has been established over the years and is very good." The official is now hoping for a happy ending for the scammed, also with a view to the assets that were confiscated. "We hope that the victims can now also receive financial compensation from the Turkish authorities," he said.
