Overview

• On July 31, Albanian police, the Pandora special commission and investigators from Germany’s Landeskriminalamt Baden-Württemberg and Albania’s SPAK conducted coordinated raids on six homes in Tirana to execute arrest warrants.
• Six suspects—five men and one woman aged 21 to 36—were detained on suspicion of running the fraudulent call centre.
• Authorities allege they impersonated police and bank officials to pressure victims into transferring money.
• Over six months, the ring is accused of siphoning nearly €400,000 from elderly citizens in Germany and Austria.
• The arrests mark the latest in a series of EU-backed operations since October 2024 targeting organized telephone fraud networks.