Shock call to 14-year-old and her sister: trickster captured five-digit sum

Created: 12/23/2022, 11:44 am

By: Jannis Gogolin

Using the pretext of keeping their father out of jail, a perpetrator deprived two young sisters of their family's savings.

Kitzingen – Anyone who gets shocking stories on the phone about arrested relatives, sick family members or criminal charges against oneself should prick up their ears.

Because often it is about the fantasies of bold con artists.

Well organized, they regularly manage to cheat people out of large sums of money.

And the manipulative methods used by criminals are becoming ever more sophisticated.

Scam on the phone: Sisters hand over a five-digit amount to an unknown perpetrator

Older students are usually the focus of the tricky criminals.

The fact that young people can also become victims of scams was recently shown in the Lower Franconian district of Kitzingen.

After a shock phone call, two sisters, 19 and 14 years old, handed over a five-figure sum to an unknown perpetrator.

For the Lower Franconia police, the young age of the victims is "a completely new phenomenon", while the process looks like a "classic call center fraud", as press spokesman and police chief inspector Björn Schmitt explains.

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The scam of the professional perpetrators: The two sisters got a call from an alleged police officer.

He described an almost hopeless situation to the young people.

Her father was involved in a serious traffic accident and is about to go to prison.

Only with a deposit - which his two daughters have to bring - "the father could be saved from prison," says Schmitt.

Lured to Würzburg under pretense – perpetrators disappeared after money was handed over

With further reasons given, the perpetrator managed to lure the girls 20 kilometers to Würzburg, the capital of the Lower Franconian administrative district.

According to the police, they handed over the stolen goods to an unknown man near the old town, who then disappeared.

It wasn't long before the two girls noticed the foul play and called the police.

She was able to reassure the siblings that the father was not threatened with imprisonment.

However, the alleged officer and the money are gone.

In order to protect yourself from such scams, the Lower Franconia police advise you to “be very skeptical” about strange calls and to hang up immediately if necessary.

Then "it's best to call the person in question and ask," advises police spokesman Schmitt.

If that doesn't work, the person called can "calmly dial the emergency number 110".

If an attempt at fraud is recognized early, as an 84-year-old recently did in Fürstenfeldbruck, the police can quickly locate and arrest the perpetrators.

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Prevention important: Police also sensitize school children to fraud

While the police are investigating this case afterwards, they are also conducting campaigns for education and prevention in Bavaria.

“With one we are directly addressing the most common target group, senior citizens.

In another, we explain to school children how they can protect their grandparents from so-called grandchild fraud,” explains Chief Inspector Schmitt.

Because apart from the financial damage, such an incident takes the victims mentally.

“A lot of people are very ashamed that they fell for it.

In order not to make things worse, we usually do not give exact amounts of damage."

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However, caution is not only required on the phone.

Because the tricksters have expanded their activities to other platforms such as news services or social media.

The mother of a Reddit user recently received WhatsApp messages in which the alleged son asked for money.

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