Eight arrested in bank help desk scam after 150 people lost €1.6 million

The Limburg police arrested eight suspects of bank helpdesk fraud in the past months. The suspects are four men and four women, mostly from the Amsterdam region. According to the police, they stole a total of 1.6 million euros from 150 people, scamming the victims into thinking they were calling from their bank.

The Limburg police’s Cybercrime Team launched this investigation into bank helpdesk fraud in March 2022. Months of inquiry led them to arrest four women in October last year and four men last week.

According to the police, the scammers called victims with a fake number, making it look like they were calling from the victim’s bank. Posing as bank employees, they told the victims that there were suspicious transactions on their bank accounts, showing the accounts had been hacked. They convinced the victims to transfer their account balance into a “vault account” or a “safe account,” which, in reality, were the suspects’ accounts.

The women arrested in October are a 20-year-old from Amstelveen, two 21-year-olds from Nigtevecht and Almere, and a 22-year-old from Amsterdam. Last week Wednesday, March 22, the police arrested four men - two 24-year-olds and a 23-year-old from Almere, and a 24-year-old from Amsterdam. Only one suspect, the 23-year-old man from Almere, is still in custody. “The other seven persons have been released but are still suspects in the investigation.”