With NemID, one’s online banking, health data and other private information should be secure. A two-step verification must ensure that unauthorized persons do not cheat access to our private data.
But when an immediately friendly gentleman calls and tells you that there are problems with your accounts and that he would like to help resolve them, it can be hard not to be fooled.
At least according to the police, this has happened to the elderly and vulnerable across the country. They are believed to have been victims of widespread fraud.
A 30-year-old man from Greve is suspected of calling citizens, under the pretext that there are problems with their accounts. In the charges against him, it is said that in this way he has deceived access to their accounts and stolen no less than 2.9 million kroner.
This is stated by the Central and West Zealand Police in a press release.
The man was remanded in custody until Thursday 23 December at the constitutional hearing, which took place behind closed doors at the Court in Roskilde, the police write on Twitter.
The prosecution requested closed doors for the sake of further investigation, which should clarify whether the 30-year-old can be charged with more crimes and whether persons other than the 30-year-old may have played a role in the fraud against the elderly.
Martin Eise Eriksen, head of the department for economic crime at the Central and West Zealand Police, explains in the press release that the case is far from the first of its kind.
– Unfortunately, we see a number of cases where fraudsters exploit weak and vulnerable citizens to commit crime. These are cases that we have a strong focus on, but they are also very complex cases that give rise to extensive investigations.
In addition to the suspicion of having cheated citizens for their money, the police believe that the man has persuaded vulnerable people to act as intermediaries – so-called mules.
It is believed that he has persuaded them to lend him their accounts to transfer the victims’ money to. Thereafter, the money has been withdrawn from the intermediaries’ accounts to obscure the culprit’s tracks.
– This is extensive fraud against the elderly and other weak citizens who have either been cheated or grossly exploited, says Martin Eise Eriksen.
The fraud counts 27 conditions. The first were announced in June. They have since been reported to the police until November, when the latest case of fraud, which the police are investigating in the case, has been reported.
Source: The Nordic Page