"Professional, perfidious and brazen" Fraudsters rip off parents with a nasty WhatsApp trick
Two young Dutchmen defrauded Swiss parents out of a lot of money with a clever scam. They pretended to be their children, stole several 100,000 francs and lived a life of luxury.
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- The Zurich District Court has convicted two young Dutchmen of commercial fraud and money laundering.
- They stole several 100,000 francs with a new scam.
- They spent the stolen money on parties, cars and hotels in Zurich.
On Tuesday, the Zurich district court heard the case of two young Dutchmen. They are said to have defrauded 28 parents of several hundred thousand francs with a new scam, as reported by the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper.
The 22-year-old and 24-year-old men initially worked in the port of Rotterdam before suddenly indulging in luxury without working and regularly traveling to Zurich for parties.
"In the summer of 2023, the two men stayed in luxury hotels in Zurich for a few days at a time and enjoyed the local nightlife to excess," the public prosecutor's office writes in the indictment. To finance their expensive lifestyle, the duo would have used dishonest means to help themselves.
A network of helpers
The two allegedly used contacts from Zurich's nightlife scene to recruit young people who opened numerous SIM cards and bank accounts in their own names. The two Dutchmen usually paid the helpers 300 francs for five SIM cards. They in turn recruited more people.
The Dutch then used a filter program to find several thousand potential victims. They sent them a message from the numbers registered in other names: "Mami and papi, can you save the number? I'm new anyway and I'm writing to you on WhatsApp."
The reason given was that the cell phone had been lost or broken in the washing machine. If a reply was received, the two con artists pretended to be a son or daughter in need of urgent financial help. Because of the new cell phone, access to online banking was blocked, but they urgently needed a transfer of between 2,000 and 17,000 francs. The money would be paid back soon.
SMS in Swiss German
The communication was in Swiss German - a new method for online scams. This is probably one of the reasons why 28 parents fell for the scam and transferred more than 346,000 francs to accounts in Switzerland and Lithuania.
According to the Tages-Anzeiger, some of the victims' own children were traveling abroad and therefore difficult to reach, while for others the relationship between parents and child was strained and the message was taken as a cry for help.
The helpers withdrew the money transferred to them and paid at least half of it in cash to the two Dutchmen. "What proportion of the proceeds of the crime actually ended up with the accused is a mystery," the judge was quoted as saying by the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper.
Sentenced to prison terms
Both defendants confessed. They testified that they had spent most of their money in Switzerland on parties, hotels and cars. The seven siblings of one of the two men had also received some of the money. A large part of the criminal sum is likely to still be with the numerous helpers.
According to the judge, the Dutchmen had acted "quite professionally, perfidiously and brazenly".
The court sentenced them to 29 and 35 months' imprisonment respectively for commercial fraud and money laundering. They must each serve six months in prison.
In addition, the two Dutchmen must pay for the damage caused and are not allowed to enter Switzerland for seven years.
