German Refund Crew: Charges brought against eight suspects
Eight suspects are now on trial in the case of the fraudulent business model with fake returns. The investigation has been ongoing since 2020.
(Image: Maksim Kabakou/Shutterstock.com)
The scam sounded clever: order goods online, pretend to return them in order to receive a refund of the purchase price. In 2020, c't came across a Telegram group offering this scam as a service in return for commission. Law enforcement officials began an investigation - and now seven alleged gang members and another defendant who allegedly assisted with payment processing in individual cases and commissioned refund fraud himself have been charged.
The Bavarian Cybercrime Central Office, together with the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), has now announced that charges have been brought after years of investigation. The seven main defendants are suspected of having acted commercially and as a gang in the Telegram group "GermanRefundCrew".
More than half a million euros in losses
In the period from July to October 2020, two large online mail order companies suffered losses of around 530,000 euros, the prosecutors explain. The accused are said to have charged a commission amounting to a certain percentage of the value of the goods, but a fixed price for some particularly high-priced products. The individual participants thus made between 2245 euros and 114,781.99 euros with the scam.
The seven main defendants, aged between 23 and 41, have to answer to the Munich II Regional Court for between 321 and 564 cases of gang and commercial computer fraud for which they are accused. The public prosecutor's office in Bamberg explains that a prison sentence of between one and ten years is envisaged. As one of the participants was under the age of 21 at the time of the crime, a juvenile chamber must decide whether to admit the indictment.
The defendants come from many parts of the country. The prosecutors name the districts of Miesbach (Bavaria), Neuwied (Rhineland-Palatinate), Recklinghausen (North Rhine-Westphalia), Barnim (Brandenburg), Rhein-Neckar-Kreis (Baden-Württemberg), Bochum and Gelsenkirchen. An eighth defendant from Wesel (North Rhine-Westphalia) is alleged to have helped the German Refund Crew with payment processing in six cases and to have faked fraudulent returns worth 8,000 euros himself. The public prosecutor's office accuses him of aiding and abetting gang and commercial computer fraud as well as nine further cases of computer fraud.
Presumption of innocence
The presumption of innocence continues to apply to the accused - why the Central Cybercrime Unit emphasizes this self-evident fact remains unclear. So far, none of the accused have "made a criminal appearance". However, customers and others involved who have so far remained unharmed should not rest easy: "The investigations into the customers of the 'GermanRefundCrew' who used their services for fake returns are ongoing," the prosecutors conclude their statement.
c't uncovered the fraudulent scam and some variants of it on the Telegram channel in 2020. In May 2021, the BKA then searched the properties of seven suspected men. The investigation targeted not only the members of the gang, but also hundreds of customers.
(dmk)