Overview
- Fraudsters placed calls to people in Kassel, Nordhessen and other towns posing as hospital doctors and sometimes police, claiming a relative was critically ill and demanding immediate cash for treatment, transport or medicine.
- Authorities recorded several dozen reports from mostly senior citizens after the calls surfaced earlier in the week, and police and a regional bank issued public warnings to increase vigilance.
- Police in Schwabach detained a money-collector and two others after a 74-year-old recognized a fake call and alerted officers during the call, and prosecutors have filed custody requests for two suspects.
- A more recent case in Schmalkalden resulted in a woman handing over €100,000 in cash after callers falsely said her son had cancer, and investigators are treating the incident as an ongoing fraud case.
- Officials caution that hospitals and police never request cash by phone and advise victims to hang up, call 110 independently, contact relatives directly, refuse to hand over money to couriers, and use call-blocking or remove numbers from public directories.