Raids in East Friesland: Fraud with Corona aid in the millions

Created: 05/31/2022, 14:25

The police have been searching various properties in several federal states since Tuesday morning on suspicion of gang fraud with emergency corona aid worth millions.

© Hauke-Christian Dittrich/dpa

The police in four federal states are investigating fraud with corona aid worth millions.

Numerous raids have already taken place.

The focus of the mission is in East Friesland.

Ostfriesland - It's about a fraud in the millions: The police are currently investigating in four federal states against five men between the ages of 26 and 62 years.

Numerous raids have already taken place on Tuesday.

According to the police, the focus of the operation is in Lower Saxony, more precisely in East Frisia and the district of Aurich.

Among other things, officials from the Oldenburg and Wiesmoor districts were deployed.

This is reported by kreiszeitung.de.

Raids for Corona aid in East Friesland: Suspects are said to have stolen around 26 million euros

According to the police, the men are said to have applied for emergency corona aid for their own purposes and for companies in at least 104 cases and bridging aid in at least 259 cases.

These would amount to a total of around 26 million euros.

The suspects are said to have deliberately falsified information.

Raid in East Friesland: Objects searched in the Aurich district, Wiesmoor district, Oldenburg district and in communities in East Frisia

A total of 25 properties in Lower Saxony, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia were searched on Tuesday morning.

In particular, officials were deployed in Oldenburg, Aurich, Wiesmoor and in communities in East Frisia.

The police secured evidence – including bills, digital storage media, as well as written documents and mobile devices.

However, there were no arrests.

Raid in the district of Aurich: the main suspect is a former mayoral candidate

One of the five main suspects is a man from Wiesmoor (Aurich district).

According to the NDR, he is a former mayoral candidate who had already been sentenced to prison last year.

He evaded taxes.

Police forces searched his home and his company.

Files, mobile phones, computers, cash and valuable watches were confiscated.

There were also searches of a young woman from Aurich.

The 31-year-old is already being investigated on suspicion of fraud – she is said to have cheated on corona tests.

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Fraud with Corona aid: Oldenburg public prosecutor and officials from Oldenburg were involved

The central searches were led by Michael Maßmann, chief of police at the Osnabrück police headquarters, together with the Oldenburg public prosecutor's office.

He stressed that the raids had succeeded in "disrupting a suspected criminal network involved in subsidy fraud."

The investigators got on the trail of the suspects in April 2020 through several suspicious transaction reports from a development bank in the Netherlands.

They then initiated investigations, which are still ongoing after the current searches, according to the police.