For Olga, a resident of the Russian capital, a trip to Europe turned into an unforgettable experience — though not thanks to Germany’s sights or the particular charm of its cities. From the moment she crossed the border, Olga was accompanied by police officers, and for two weeks she was surrounded only by the walls of a pre-trial detention facility. We at the law firm learned that Olga was “in prison” from a phone call by her sister. Our lawyers immediately set out to establish the facts of the case.
Two Weeks Before the Trip
Olga worked at a Russian bank — a young woman with values typical of her generation: independence and financial security. In pursuit of the first, she had a reasonably well-paid job; in pursuit of the second, a mortgage and a car loan. Almost immediately after finishing university, Olga had thrown herself into building a career, leaving her little time or particular desire to travel the world — and, after her monthly payments, barely enough money for anything beyond groceries. A few years earlier, she had spent a single day in Germany, though it had left little impression. Then, one day, her friends planned a weekend trip to Finland and talked Olga into joining them. The Finnish embassy issued a tourist visa remarkably quickly. Olga packed a bag, and the group of friends settled comfortably into their airplane seats. The trip promised to be a fun one.
After landing, at passport control, a Finnish border guard politely welcomed the visitor to the land of Suomi and asked her to step into a separate room. “Something’s not right,” Olga thought, alarmed — though the airport staff’s politeness and attentiveness lent her worry a strange note of anticipation, as though some kind of prize might be waiting. But the “Bingo!” that day wasn’t meant for her. Police officers arrived and, politely, with friendly expressions, informed Olga that she was the subject of an international search warrant, that she was suspected of around thirty counts of fraud, and that she would be handed over to the German authorities who had put out the warrant in the first place. Olga told her family back in Russia about her detention and set off on an unplanned “bus tour” of Europe — though she had pictured her trip looking rather different.
When a Lawyer Takes on the Case
At the police station, our lawyers were handed Olga’s case file — one that could hardly have fit into the travel bag the Muscovite had brought along for her getaway. She was charged with twenty-four counts of internet fraud — and that was in a single federal state alone; the total number of counts elsewhere couldn’t be precisely determined. And yet, judging by Olga herself — her reaction to the situation, her general demeanor — the actual fraudster was clearly somewhere else entirely. Olga herself hadn’t even realized she was a victim of fraud too. Our lawyers only got to the bottom of it after a detailed interview, during which, as if in a session with a psychoanalyst, new details kept surfacing, gradually forming a far clearer picture than the one Olga and the investigating police had in mind. Four years earlier, Olga had visited Berlin, but she never connected that earlier trip with her detention — she was certain it had been purely a business trip, and she had traveled with a friend of a friend, a mid-level businessman named Maxim. She had seemed to have no reason to distrust him. Every new question brought new answers, and our lawyers were able to piece together an approximate picture of how Olga might have become an alleged fraudster on an international wanted list.
A few years earlier, Olga had met Maxim, a friend of her friend — the two had, in fact, met at that friend’s birthday party, which only made the acquaintance feel more trustworthy. Over a glass of wine and idle conversation, Olga learned that Maxim made his living importing used cars from Germany to Russia and reselling them. It wasn’t a new business, but it brought in serious money — the problem was that the state took far too much of it in customs duties. Maxim and Olga returned to the subject of customs duties at their next meeting, and the businessman’s complaints about his hard life turned into a business proposal: for three hundred euros, Olga would travel with Maxim to Germany and register a car in her own name. Maxim, of course, would also cover the travel costs. As he explained it, Russian customs fleeced people like him, but if someone was importing a car for the first time, the duty was minimal. Olga was tempted.
Business, Russian Style
Her first trip to Europe went like this: a flight to Berlin, and that same evening, the return trip in the newly purchased car, via Helsinki. Olga never got even a passing glimpse of the vast city of Berlin — but she did get to see the local registration office (Bürgeramt) and a bank. A friend of Maxim’s who met them at the airport explained to our heroine that, in order to register the car in her name, she would first need to register her address and open a bank account. At the time, having a landlord confirm the tenancy was enough for a foreigner to register an address. Olga spent part of the day getting her Berlin registration and the other part opening a bank account based on that registration document — Maxim’s friend handled all the negotiations with officials and bank staff, and Olga only had to sign where told. Once all the documents were ready, the car was waiting for Maxim and Olga, and the two “business partners” set off for home. Upon arrival, however, Maxim paid Olga only a hundred euros and disappeared. This was 2013.
While Olga was working with the bank’s client database, someone unknown — one can guess who — obtained Olga’s bank card and PIN. In the summer of 2013, numerous eBay accounts appeared using variations on the name “Olga.” As our lawyers later established, all of these accounts had been registered from different IP addresses, but every single transaction ran through the same account — Olga’s. The trading continued for about a month, offering items — mostly household electronics — averaging around a thousand euros in value. Trusting buyers transferred the money and never received their goods; the moment funds landed in the account, someone would immediately withdraw them from an ATM. In Berlin alone, the total damage to fraud victims exceeded thirty thousand euros. Having never received their purchases and getting no replies to their messages, buyers complained to eBay, which forwarded the complaints on to the bank. The bank froze the account due to the suspicious activity. Our lawyers had no doubt about Olga’s innocence — the challenge was convincing the investigation of the same.
Judging by the case file, the investigation had made little real progress. No one had even checked who actually lived at, or rented, the apartment where Olga was registered.
Based on the length of Olga’s stay in Germany in 2013, there was simply no way she could have obtained the bank card and PIN herself. The police had never checked the IP addresses used to register the accounts. At our lawyers’ request, Olga’s employer provided records of her use of the bank’s internal systems under her personal login — showing that, on the very days someone was withdrawing money from an ATM, Olga had been at her desk at work. Based on this evidence, we decided to approach the investigators to review both the conduct of the police investigation and the lawfulness of our client’s detention. Under §263 of the German Criminal Code, Olga faced up to five years’ imprisonment.
During the preliminary hearing, the prosecution argued in favor of Olga’s guilt on the grounds that she was literate, that the word “Bank” on the account should have been understandable to her, and that she must therefore have been aware of what she was doing. That, however, was the prosecution’s only argument — and the court preferred our lawyers’ arguments instead. The court ruled to discontinue the case as to those counts. The situation was complicated, though, by the fact that another federal state had also opened a case over fraud committed through Olga’s account, and a court there had already ordered a fine of two thousand euros. To have that ruling overturned, Olga would have had to remain in Berlin for an extended period — but by then, her “weekend trip” had already turned into a nightmare back home. Olga was fired from her job over unexplained absences, and her bank began proceedings to seize the apartment held as collateral, suspecting she had gone on the run. Maxim even called her sister — having somehow learned of Olga’s troubles, he warned that if Olga started naming names, things would go badly for her. Unable to wait for the charges in the other federal state to be resolved, Olga decided to simply pay the fine — and, after the time she’d already spent in detention, what remained of the sum wasn’t as large as it might have been.
It’s a shame Olga never got to enjoy the sights of Helsinki, and that she saw Berlin only from the window of the taxi that took her from our law firm to the airport. But both Olga and our lawyers were glad, in the end, that justice had prevailed for an innocent person. We hope it catches up with the guilty ones too — every name of the suspected fraudsters was passed on to the investigation.
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