Dutch police threaten to publicly humiliate 100 scammers & fake cops still at large

The police have launched a campaign to “turn the tide” in the skyrocketing number of fake cop and fake helpdesk scams. Blurred photos of 100 scam suspects will be displayed on digital screens along Dutch roads, at train stations, in television advertisements, on social media, and on the police website from Monday. If the suspects don’t turn themselves in, the police will show their un-blurred faces starting March 23.

Last year, the police received 13,000 reports of scams involving people posing as police officers to rob predominantly elderly targets, up from just over 8,000 in 2024. “The number of (bank) helpdesk fraud cases was many times greater,” the police said.

For the first time last year, a fake cop scam turned fatal. 80-year-old Irene Winkel was killed in a confrontation with a fake police officer in her Amsterdam home.

According to the police, the suspects are mainly young people who see this type of crime as a game. “The term ‘F-Game’ is often used among them,” the police said. They therefore titled this campaign “Game Over.”

“Defrauding people is not a game but a serious crime,” the police said. “Fraud has a huge impact on the often elderly victims. They completely lose their trust in others and the authorities.”

The police hope that by identifying these 100 suspects, they can also “turn the tide” by discouraging new, potential perpetrators.

“We hope that ultimately, no one will be tempted to act as errand boys for these organizations, thus putting an end to the phenomenon of fake police officers and fake bank employees,” Anne Jan Oosterheert of the police said. “These nasty forms of fraud have now become a social problem that can also be solved in collaboration with society.”