Love scammers scam several 100,000 francs in Liechtenstein

According to the police, the scam is also known as a "love scam" and is widespread on the internet. The perpetrators pretend to be in a romantic relationship with their victims in order to financially harm them at some point. In Liechtenstein, the criminals were so convincing in the course of the online correspondence that the victims transferred hundreds of thousands of francs to them.

Victims of such crimes are both men and women, mostly in the second half of life, wrote the national police. Initial contact is practically always made via social media. "The fraud only begins when the victim is emotionally involved," it said.

Always the same procedure

The elements of the scam always remain the same: a personal meeting with the "dream partner" is not possible for various reasons and contact is made exclusively via the internet and telephone. The "dream partner" pretends to be in a distant country. Later, he, she or a close family member allegedly suffers a serious stroke of fate and asks for money, expensive electronic items or services.

At the other end of the line, however, are professional gangs. Often there are even several people who take turns.

"There are also numerous victims in our region and many do not report them to the police out of shame," wrote the state police. There is probably a high number of unreported cases.