I woke up to 2 missed calls from a German number, when I tried to call back; I got an automated response “there is no connection to this number” (first red flag). A few min later the same number called except the last digit was different. The guy on the line said he was from the Polizei and wanted to inform me about fraudulent activity being done under my name with my ID in Berlin. He asked to confirm my name which I did and post code.

He proceeded to give me a case number of this case to write down as well as his name “Thomas Gilbert” (second red flag as it does not sound German). As for the fraudulent activity, he spoke of some bank accounts in my name were found in connection to a drug trafficking case linked to Mexico and Colombia and that cocaine was found at some addresses in Berlin (at this point im pretty sure this is a scam). He then proceeded to tell me the addresses and at this point we’ve spoken long enough for me to tell he isn’t German as he spoke with an accent that sounds I’d assume Russian? once he pronounced “Straße” like someone who’s spent not more than 3 days in German I called his bluff and fully understand that this is probably a scam call.

Knowing this I continued with the call just to see what kind of information he might want to get from me so I can try understand his motives. We got to a point where he wanted to book an appointment and I told him “I’d much rather go to my local police station with the case number you gave me and book the appointment in person as I’m not comfortable answering any more questions on the phone” at this point he responded with a relatively frustrated tone too which I just hung up

Now I’m wondering has anyone else received a call similar to this? Is it worth reporting and where could they have received my number from. Obviously I’ll change all my passwords as this could originate from a leaked database from any of the sites I’ve once registered on. But generally I’m concerned if I should be worried about this call as I’ve never received anything like this since I moved here for my studies.

Update: This is confirmed to be a known scam. Here’s more [information about it from Europol](https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/beware-of-scams-involving-fake-correspondence-europol)

TL,DR: Received a call that my name and ID were involved in a Drug trafficking and money laundering scheme tied to Mexico and Colombia. Scam call?

6 comments

  1. Yep Scam.
    Police wouldnt call you for things like that

    Call/report it to a local police station if you’re unsure.
    Just block those numbers and dont answer them again

    As to where they got your number from, there are many possibilities.
    Most likely they either have a bot ping calling and checking if ransom number combinations work, or your data was sold/not well protected by companies that dont care too much about privacy. Its rrelatively unlikely that this is the result of your personal account getting hacked, but it never hurts to check and change passwords anyway

  3. Of course it’s a scam. It’s a very well-known scam that’s been in the news for months.

    You shouldn’t ever try to talk to these people unless you’re an experienced scambaiter. Hang up immediately; and yes, report it to the police.

    They didn’t necessarily get your number from any hacked database or anything: usually, they have auto-diallers to dial thousands of numbers at random (if when you picked up it was a recorded message telling you to “Press 1”, it was definitely an auto-dialler). There are plenty of cold-reading techniques they can use to make you *think* they know about you when in reality they don’t.

    And finally, if you get a missed call from an unknown number, don’t call back. If it’s genuine, they’ll call again or leave a voicemail. In this case, they just spoofed the caller ID, but sometimes scammers use tricks like this to instantly redirect you to a premium rate number when you call back.

  4. I get these calls all the time. There is not really anything you can do, reporting it to the police is an option, but the numbers are not real. They mask the real number with a German number. So the police can’t really do anything.

    I give them fake names (Peter Parker, Bruce Wayne etc.) and random postal codes and generally waste their time when I have the time to do so. I know it is a scam, the next person they phone might not, so the intention is to keep them on the line as long as possible without giving them usable information.

    You can also just ignore them.

    German police will never phone you. They come knocking.

  6. I’m getting these for the last 2 weeks. Every times different number. Someone somewhere sold my phone number with thousands of others.

    So people seem very shocked when I decline to leave my phone number on random forms at doctors office, lieferando or I don’t know what

Leave a Reply