A collaborative effort between German, Albanian, Bosnian-Herzegovinian, Kosovar, and Lebanese police forces led to the raid of 12 call centers.
These centers were pinpointed as the epicenter of a massive scam operation, inundating unsuspecting individuals with thousands of fraudulent calls daily.
The culmination of this Europol-supported action day resulted in the arrest of 21 individuals, effectively dismantling a criminal network responsible for defrauding countless victims through a variety of deceptive tactics.
Operation PANDORA started with a bank teller in Freiburg, Germany. When in December 2023 a customer asked to withdraw over EUR 100 000 in cash, the bank teller grew suspicious and quickly learned the customer had fallen victim to a ‘fake police officer scam’. He informed the real police, which prevented the victim from handing the money over to the fraudsters.
Instead receiving the massive sum of cash, the collectors were arrested by Freiburg Police (Polizeipräsidium Freiburg) officers. Subsequently, surveillance was placed on the victim’s phone line. Looking into this individual case, investigators soon realised that the telephone numbers used by the perpetrators could be linked to over 28 000 scam calls in only 48 hours.
