Vienna Police Search for Rip-Deal Fraudster: 3,000 Euro Reward Offered

The suspect, a Serbian citizen, posed as an Israeli-Luxembourgish investor and made contact with an Austrian industrialist. The latter had been seeking investors for his real estate projects in eastern Austria through a crowdfunding platform. According to investigator Valentin Szaga-Doktor from the Rip-Deal-Unit Vienna, the suspect and the victim remained in contact for weeks. Meetings took place in Malaga and Paris. The supposed investor planned to invest 80 million euros and to conduct the transaction in Bitcoin.

Access to Crypto Wallet Spied by Rip-Deal Fraudster

In so-called rip-deals, perpetrator groups pose as wealthy businessmen or investors. In classic rip-deals, they pretend to want to buy luxury goods such as watches, cars, real estate, gold coins, or bars. Before the deal, the suspects establish trust with the victims. For the supposed business, the victims are often invited abroad - to expensive hotels and restaurants, reported the Vienna investigators. In fact, the perpetrators belong to criminal clans, mainly from the Western Balkans. The deals are then paid with counterfeit money - or the victims are robbed. Gerald Goldnagl, chief inspector of the Vienna Rip-Deal-Unit, described the crime on Thursday as the "supreme discipline of fraud".

However, increasingly, these are "Rip-Deals 2.0", where the clans spy on the access to the crypto wallets of their victims and thus gain access to them. This was also the case with the Austrian industrialist: Together with a supposed nephew of the "investor", the victim then set up a crypto wallet during a meeting in a Parisian luxury restaurant. On this occasion, the alleged fraudsters must have managed to obtain the access data to the virtual wallet unnoticed. When the victim was back in Austria after the meeting, the suspects wanted him to load 40 Bitcoins into the wallet - as proof of capital. Although the Austrian immediately issued a return transfer order, the fraudster managed to steal the Bitcoins.

3,000 Euro Reward Offered for Information on Rip-Deal Fraudster

The victim filed a report in Salzburg. Due to parallel investigations by the Rip-Deal-Unit and a similar case in Portugal, the internationally networked police officers identified a clan with branches in France, Germany, and Austria. As part of "Operation MEDE 2", the Vienna unit, together with Europol, the Austrian Federal Criminal Police Office, the Federal Criminal Police Office Wiesbaden in Germany, the Criminal Investigation Department of the Salzburg City Police Command, as well as groups from France and Spain, was able to track down the 37-year-old suspect. Information is being received - also anonymously - by the Vienna State Criminal Police Office, Center-East Branch, Rip-Deal-Unit Vienna, at the phone number 01 31310 62510. The Association of Friends of the Vienna Police has offered a reward of 3,000 euros.

Rip-Deal-Unit of the Police Takes Stock

The Rip-Deal-Unit Vienna was established five years ago, in May 2020. It deals with fraudulent deals in the federal capital and provides support throughout Austria as well as internationally. Since 2020, the special investigators have investigated more than 100 rip-deal cases in this country, with a clearance rate of 80 percent, as the investigators reported on Thursday. In addition, the unit assists foreign services and has clarified 131 cases and identified 180 perpetrators in this context. The group's goals are to combat organized crime groups, identify international connections, and implement preventive measures, said Martin Roudny, head of the Center-East Branch of the Vienna State Criminal Police Office.

In the meantime, rip-deals have arrived in the digital world: About two-thirds to three-quarters of the "completions" of the cases are now frauds involving cryptocurrencies, said Szaga-Doktor. What is special about this is that the victims no longer have to "make an advance payment". The supposed investors suggest to them that proof on crypto wallets is sufficient for part of the investment to be transferred. In addition, according to Mario Kaintz, another investigator of the unit, the margin in crypto fraud is much higher. Since no counterfeit money is involved anymore, a significant trail of evidence - keyword DNA traces - is also eliminated for the investigators.

(APA/Red)

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