“Not all is well in the world, because people are still governed by fraud.”
G. C. Lichtenberg
Many of us know from firsthand experience that fraudsters are remarkably inventive people. Nearly every day, new and increasingly sophisticated types of fraud appear. Yet, as with fashion, alongside the new “trends” there are established, time-tested, “perfect” schemes for deceiving trusting people. Germany, like other affluent European countries, is a haven for finding naive victims and running all manner of fraudulent schemes.
One time-tested, “old-school” method of deception that has regained popularity amid the pandemic is fraud involving orders for various goods online, using unwitting intermediaries. Such trusting citizens by no means always realize that a simple side job repackaging parcels can expose them to serious criminal liability. In our firm’s practice, we regularly encounter clients seeking protection from criminal prosecution. Many clients initially fail to understand where exactly the crime lies. After all, their work seemed legal and harmless — they simply received parcels of goods, then repackaged and forwarded them.
So what exactly is the parcel-fraud scheme in Germany? We tell the story of one case that, despite a number of difficult circumstances, was successfully concluded by a lawyer at our firm specializing in criminal law.
Client Story: An Alarming Call From Riga
A woman who permanently resides in Riga — let’s call her Irina — came to our firm. In the first phone call, she told us that her nineteen-year-old son — let’s call him Stanislav — was under investigation in Germany in criminal proceedings opened against him. Stanislav had been assigned a court-appointed public defender. Irina, quite emotional, asked us to look into exactly what her son was being accused of and to take over the case. We of course explained to our potential client how we work and expressed our readiness to take on the case. However, having promised to think it all over, she hung up and disappeared for about two months.
Honestly, having nearly forgotten about the initial call, we once again heard the anxious woman’s voice on the phone. This time she said the situation had become genuinely critical and literally required a professional’s immediate intervention. Over the past two months, Irina had received almost no news from her son. All she knew was that he had been arrested, was in custody, and faced criminal punishment. The court-appointed public defender was unreachable, and there was no phone contact with her son. Irina could not fly out to Germany herself, since she was raising another young child back home and caring for her own mother, who needed constant attention. Nonetheless, our future client’s mother naturally wanted to know just how bad things really were, and what her son was facing.
The lawyer agreed to take the case and, understanding that in this instance any delay was unacceptable, immediately arranged a meeting with Stanislav to clarify the situation and obtain the case file. As it soon turned out, that urgency was fully justified: an indictment had already been issued against the young man, and the trial hearing was scheduled for just two days later. One might ask what a lawyer could possibly accomplish in two days before the hearing, especially since the young man’s interests were already represented by a court-appointed defender. As it turned out — a great deal.
56 Counts and a Charge of Aggravated Fraud
First, in a face-to-face meeting with his client, the lawyer established exactly what had led to the arrest and the opening of criminal proceedings. Our client stood accused of 56 counts of involvement in fraudulent schemes — 13 of which had been “successfully” carried out, while 43 remained at the attempt stage. This was more than sufficient grounds for a substantial criminal penalty under §263 of the German Criminal Code (German: Strafgesetzbuch, StGB) for aggravated fraud, i.e. fraud committed on a commercial basis. The penalty for this offense under paragraph 3 of that provision is imprisonment from six months to ten years. In addition, a civil claim for damages caused by the criminal acts, in the amount of roughly €30,000, was also filed within the criminal proceedings.
The charges were based on an “age-old” fraud scheme — one that has become rather tired, yet gained renewed popularity at the peak of the online-shopping boom. A young man, actively looking for a side job, was offered a simple way to earn money on a social media platform. He was asked to come to Berlin temporarily, register his residence, and live in an apartment rented for him. The job itself consisted only of receiving parcels from online shops, checking the goods, repackaging them, and sending them on to addresses specified by the employer. The stated reason for this arrangement was that the company supposedly had to pay high customs duties when sending goods directly to recipients. The pay was modest, but, he was promised, regular. So the young man, though hesitant about such an unexpectedly attractive offer, agreed without much deliberation.
As an EU citizen requiring no visa or residence permit, he packed a small backpack and set off for Berlin — a city popular with young people — where, upon arrival, he was indeed given the keys to a studio apartment in one of the outer residential districts. At first, everything went as promised: boxes of various goods began arriving at the address, and Stanislav, following the instructions of the company that had hired him, checked the goods against the delivery notes, repackaged them into smaller boxes, and forwarded them to further addresses. Although he had not yet received the promised pay, at first glance life seemed to be falling into place — until, one day, German police officers turned up at the apartment along with the postman.
The officers searched the apartment, drew up the corresponding reports, and then transferred our client to a pre-trial detention cell, since a special investigating judge (German: Ermittlungsrichter) had ordered pre-trial detention pending the hearing. Stanislav was then, as part of exercising his rights, assigned a court-appointed public defender, whose task was to choose a strategy to protect the accused’s rights and legitimate interests. According to Stanislav himself, he met with the appointed defender only once during his detention. As part of the defense, she prepared and filed a motion with the court to review the lawfulness of the client’s arrest and detention (German: “Haftprüfung”). In addition, on the merits of the case, she advised him to make a full confession and hope for a favorable outcome. Unfortunately, this state of affairs was hardly cause for justified optimism.
The Lawyer’s Work: Reviewing the File and Preparing for the Hearing
Second, the lawyer requested and carefully reviewed the case file. Although only two days remained before the trial hearing, it was critical to know exactly what information was contained in the investigative file and in the indictment. A careful analysis of this information made it possible to work out with the client a defense line under which he would confess to the established facts included in the indictment, while leaving aside information unfavorable to our client that, although present in the pre-trial materials, had not been included in the final indictment as unconfirmed or unproven. In the end, the lawyer went through in detail with his client how to conduct himself at the trial hearing and how to answer the questions likely to be asked — so that, on the one hand, he would not volunteer any unnecessary information working against himself, and on the other hand, his statement would be recognized as a full confession, allowing him to avoid a harsher sentence involving further imprisonment.
Given how little time remained before the hearing — at which the lawfulness of the client’s arrest, and possibly the merits of the case itself, were to be examined — the lawyer petitioned for the hearing to be postponed. Our motion to postpone the trial hearing was denied. Already at the hearing itself, the lawyer filed a motion reflecting our client’s express wish to be represented not by the court-appointed public defender but by the lawyer of his choosing. Relying on the accused’s direct request, the court recognized this as lawful. The request to review the lawfulness of our client’s detention (Haftprüfung) was then withdrawn, and the court proceeded directly to examine the merits of the case.
Aiding and Abetting, Not Complicity: Germany’s Youth Courts Act
Relying on the facts in the case file, our firm’s lawyer presented compelling arguments that our client’s role in the case was not that of a participant in the fraudulent scheme, but merely an aider and abettor. Moreover, while carrying out his “job duties,” the young man had had no idea he was a link in a criminal organization’s chain, and had received no profit from it whatsoever. In addition, since our client had turned 19 by the time the case was heard, he fell under Germany’s law on criminal punishment for young offenders — that is, persons under the age of 21 (German: Jugendgerichtsgesetz, JGG).
It should be explained here that, to maximize the protection of minors, Germany’s law on criminal punishment for young offenders — that is, persons under 21 — is aimed primarily not at punishment, but at individualized, preventive education intended to help rehabilitate the young offender’s character. For this reason, the German legislature raised the age threshold of general criminal law for minors to 21, in order to help young people, whose beliefs and personal development are not yet fully formed, make the right choices in difficult life circumstances.
At the trial hearing, in the presence of his lawyer, our client gave clear and unambiguous testimony, admitting to everything he had actually done, without drawing additional attention to events and circumstances not reflected in the indictment.
Outcome: Released From the Courtroom, Civil Claim Dismissed
These circumstances undoubtedly should have substantially mitigated the anticipated sentence. After the legal arguments were discussed and closing statements were made by both the prosecution and the defense, the verdict was announced. The sentence handed down was youth detention — the form of custodial sentence applied in Germany to young offenders under 21 — for a term of 4 weeks (one month), with credit given for the time already spent in pre-trial detention. As Stanislav had therefore already served the term imposed as his sentence, he was released straight from the courtroom. Furthermore, since it had been proven that our client’s role in the criminal acts was limited to aiding and abetting rather than participation, the court also dismissed the civil claim for roughly €30,000 filed within the criminal proceedings. It goes without saying how overjoyed this outcome made him and his family.
How the Parcel-Fraud Scheme Works
In closing, we would like to point out once again that such online fraud schemes have remained fairly widespread for many years, and have recently gained a new wave of popularity amid the surge in online shopping. As the saying goes, true genius lies in simplicity. A company hires people looking for remote side work. The main misconception among people caught on the hook is their worry about the promised pay. The fraudsters’ real motive lies elsewhere — using real addresses to conceal their criminal activity. Real people have served, and continue to serve, as a buffer, and the rented apartment serves as a transit point for stolen goods. The fraudsters pay for the goods online using stolen credit cards or other means (hacked accounts, e-wallets, cryptocurrency, and so on). As a result, nothing initially raises suspicion at the online shops involved, since the goods are delivered to a genuine end consumer in Germany, and payment by a third party is entirely ordinary.
The methods used to find and recruit victims are no different from those used to find genuine remote workers or freelancers — mostly ads offering extra income posted on social media, forums, and other online platforms. For the parcel-fraud scheme in Germany, the criminals target people of limited means: retirees, homemakers, students — anyone looking for additional income.
Our firm’s belated, yet still timely, involvement in this case helped our client avoid far more serious consequences of an act committed out of sheer foolishness — namely, an extended prison sentence. We sincerely hope that this unpleasant episode, which befell Stanislav at such a young age, will serve as a valuable lesson for the rest of his eventful and multifaceted life.
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