Cybercrime: How the Leipzig police are fighting internet fraud

And that will be problematic for investigators, explains the cybercrime expert. “This is a problem for us in our investigations because the crime usually happened months ago.” The classic police training with the crime characteristics of perpetrator, victim, time and place no longer applies in virtual space. “The crime scene is usually virtual and is located somewhere in the data network. That’s why you can’t really pinpoint the crime scene.” This also raises the question of which police authority is responsible for the individual case.

The Cybercrime Department deals with victims from the Leipzig area. “However, the perpetrators are usually not in the region,” explains head of the department Höfer. “In very rare cases do we find perpetrators from the Leipzig area, where we have local jurisdiction. That’s why it always goes across borders,” says Höfer.

The fraudsters who work with cryptocurrency rip-offs, for example, call their victims from foreign call centers. Höfer himself led the search of one such center in Georgia. It was not hidden in an old industrial hall, but on a flat floor of a modern office building in the middle of other call centers that were doing legitimate business.