Jean-Louis Bordet and Claude Scho are recognised experts in the criminal investigation department. Bordet is the director of the Service de Police Judiciaire; Scho heads the Luxembourg mission at Europol. Together with the Luxemburger Wort, they paint the current picture of organised crime in the Grand Duchy. This is the first of a five-part series.

Something has to be said up front: the idea of “organised crime” is often characterised by antiquated clichés. It is no longer about mafia clans with a strict hierarchy, code of honour and clear chains of command. Organised crime has become a globally networked service industry based on the division of labour. And it is much closer to us than we think.

Young people as willing helpers

It is no longer just about serious criminals. “It is a relatively new phenomenon that we are observing, that young people in Europe are also increasingly affected,” Scho says. Without knowing the full picture, young people are becoming willing henchmen who take on small-scale tasks. And this also happens in Luxembourg, Bordet emphasises.

One example: a person is hired for €200 to rent a car, park it in a car park and hide the key behind a tyre. The next day, the next job follows: return the vehicle. Job done. In the meantime, another person is given a different job: to put a parcel in the boot of the car. She doesn’t know what’s inside. She also receives €200. What happens to the parcel or the car usually remains hidden from those involved. And yet they are part of the bigger picture.

Claude Scho: “It’s no longer just about transporting illegal parcels. You are given a mission, a challenge.” © Photo credit: Steve Remesch/LW-Archiv

“There are many small steps – someone plans the whole thing, but the individuals carrying it out don’t know the big picture,” Scho says. Only a small, exclusive circle has an overview of what is happening. Those involved remain anonymous and usually don’t even know each other.

Crime as a game

What’s more, those involved are getting younger and younger, some only 13 years old. “They are targeted via internet platforms, for example on gaming sites or social media,” Scho explains. Traditional recruitment on the street corner was rare anyway. Recruitment often takes place from abroad and is targeted at specific individuals.

Criminal organisations are increasingly using methods that are particularly attractive to young people. “Gamification,” Scho says. “It’s no longer just about transporting illegal parcels. You are given a mission, a challenge. Like in a computer game, the level of difficulty increases. It’s well thought out and frightening.”

Current examples include LuxTrust fraud and grandchildren scams. These are scams that traditionally target older people and can be classified as organised crime. The people behind them usually operate from abroad. However, local helpers are needed to collect credit cards, PIN codes, cash or valuables. This is because if a supposed employee of the authorities in Luxembourg suddenly speaks German or French, it quickly looks suspicious.

Like delivering pizza, but different

Investigations are difficult because the structures must first be unmasked. If this is successful, those involved are often blindsided. “They then say: I was supposed to deliver a pizza, but it wasn’t a pizza. I was paid €450 and I did it,” Bordet explains.

Most of them only realise the extent to which they are part of a criminal scam when they are confronted by the police.

Bordet adds: “We recently had a phase in which so-called money mules were specifically recruited, for example to open accounts and carry out a small number of transactions. It was mainly third-country nationals who were approached on the Luxembourg university campus. They saw nothing wrong with this: “Do you have an account? Then withdraw the money and pass it on.” The result: money laundering.

The police face major challenges. If they recognise the phenomenon, they have to take targeted action against it. And to prevent people from becoming victims, they need to raise awareness. Hardly a week goes by without a warning in the press about scams.

There have also been repeated arrests of money mules in recent weeks. How the perpetrators approach the victims sometimes seems strange. An example from Luxembourg: the perpetrators specifically searched the telephone directory for old-sounding first names such as “Marguerite” in order to select their victims.

Driven by profit

Cheap henchmen are also appearing throughout Europe in a new, worrying context – as part of networks that are misused for hybrid operations: the so-called throwaway agents of Vladimir Putin. No such cases have yet been reported in Luxembourg. However, the parallels between this world and the demimonde of organised crime cannot be overlooked.

Jean-Louis Bordet: “If information is available quickly and we can act quickly, there is still a realistic chance of intervening technically in the investigations – for example, to block funds.” © Photo credit: Guy Jallay/LW-Archiv

“If you want to earn money, you take on a task – whether it’s a fake LuxTrust call or a favour for someone you don’t even know,” Scho says. At the end of the day, only one thing counts: “What brings profit, gets done.”

For Bordet, the decisive factor is speed of response. “If information is available quickly and we can act quickly, there is still a realistic chance of intervening technically in the investigation – for example, to block funds,” he says. In many cases, something can still be achieved within one or two days.

Criminals make mistakes

From an investigative point of view, early access to information is also the biggest challenge. “Knowing that something is happening. In several cases, we had concrete successes, small victories, because we were at least able to arrest the middlemen. This was possible because we received information in good time, for example from people who realised that they were victims of fraud.”

It is often children who warn their parents. “Something’s not right – I think you’re being scammed. In such situations, the parents inform the police, whereupon a task force can be activated at short notice. That’s how we’ve managed to arrest people in the act,” Bordet says.

“It’s a classic pattern: every criminal makes a mistake one day,” Scho says. “Our job is to recognise these mistakes and use them to identify the perpetrators. Sometimes we come across clues that are not enough on their own. But when we combine these pieces of the puzzle with findings from other countries, we achieve a significantly higher level of investigation.”

Bordet adds that this approach has also proved successful in the so-called grandchild scam. “We had several cases over a certain period. At some point, we managed to make two or three arrests. After that, the number of cases plummeted within a very short space of time – from one hundred to zero, so to speak.”  It’s made clear every day: only if the police react quickly and adapt flexibly to new situations can they intervene successfully.

(This article was originally published by the Luxemburger Wort. Machine translated using AI, with editing and adaptation by Yannick Hansen)