The Central Office for Combating Money Laundering and Asset Recovery (ZGV) at the Munich Public Prosecutor General’s Office seized cash and assets worth 9.5 million euros last year. Eight million euros went to the coffers of the Free State of Bavaria, while the rest went to the victims of the crimes. The authority is responsible for particularly large money laundering cases in the state and supports courts and public prosecutor’s offices in confiscating illegal funds.
“The money is lying on the street,” says Hildegard Bäumler-Hösl, Senior Public Prosecutor and head of the ZGV. The authority is confronted with ever new fraud schemes. In addition to shock calls and the grandparent scam, there is now the so-called parent trick, where perpetrators pose as the victim’s child via messenger services and pretend there is an emergency. Companies are also increasingly becoming targets of fraudsters.
One example: In spring 2024, a large Munich company wanted to transfer 500,000 euros to a South American subsidiary. Cybercriminals hacked an employee’s email account and, in a deceptively real message, asked for the money to be transferred to an account in Portugal. The company complied. Thanks to a European investigation order, the 500,000 euros were secured. The money was returned to the company.
So-called cash seizures on Bavaria’s roads are becoming more frequent. “We have a major cash seizure about once a month, where you ask yourself: Where does this come from?” says Bäumler-Hösl. In March, plainclothes police found around 1.6 million euros in cash in a car on the A3 – the largest such find in Lower Bavaria in a long time. The driver, a suspected leading figure in an international money laundering organization, is in pre-trial detention.
Source: www.sueddeutsche.de
