Fraudulent SMS - Arrest - 20-year-old sends thousands of fraudulent text messages
A man, who is suspected to have sent mass fraud SMS messages to unknown recipients, was temporarily arrested at his apartment in Stuttgart. The Hamburg State Criminal Police were able to identify the 20-year-old as the suspected sender, as the police announced. Alone in the night to Thursday, he sent 44,000 such messages.
In the SMS, he presented himself to the police as a child who wanted to tell his parents, the recipients, a new telephone number. He asked them, according to initial investigations, to contact him on WhatsApp and asked for money during further communication.
During a search of the apartment on Thursday, the police found some evidence and secured the phone from which the messages were sent. The suspect was taken to a remand center, but was released by the competent court after examination. The investigations, also into potential victims of the fraud, are ongoing.
The suspect, initially from Stuttgart, hails from the broader region of Baden-Württemberg. The news of his arrest spread quickly across various platforms, including local news sources in Hamburg and beyond. Despite being temporarily released, the alleged criminal still carries a significant stigma associated with his crime. The Hamburg LKA (State Criminal Police Office) announced their intention to intensify efforts in tracking down potential victims, appealing to individuals in Hamburg and beyond to be vigilant against such deceptive SMS messages, even if they originate from seemingly innocent sources, such as a child's request on a cell phone.
