Overview
- State and federal forces plan posters, telephone drop-in hours, in-person briefings, and information packs in senior residences to raise awareness.
- Fraudsters pose as relatives or police officers and increasingly use WhatsApp “new number” messages to pressure victims into cash handovers or transfers to couriers.
- In North Rhine-Westphalia last year, police logged 3,068 foreign-linked cases with more than €1.2 million in losses and 514 domestically linked cases with about €9.4 million in losses.
- Police say many incidents go unreported due to shame and uncertainty, and they urge victims to hang up, verify on known numbers, refuse cash handovers, and file reports.
- Local officers in the Verden/Achim area report fresh waves of fake-police calls, note a regional clearance rate around 35 percent, and recommend family codewords to verify identities.