Pet poodle comes to the rescue in German fraud case and more

Pet poodle comes to the rescue in German fraud case

A fraudster’s pet poodle has helped police track down a German woman accused of embezzlement and faking her own death. (See German ‘dead fraudster’ exposed by pet poodle in Majorca, BBC, May 6, 2021.)

Spanish police have arrested a 47-year-old woman who is suspected of having stolen around 1 million euros from a German solar power firm and was hiding out on the Spanish island of Majorca.

Detectives hired by the company used social media searches to discover that the fraudster owned a “giant” poodle, which is not a common breed on the island. They soon tracked down the woman when a man was spotted walking a dog of that description near a villa in the town of Santa Ponça.

Last year, the German solar company grew suspicious of the woman after her parents reported that she had died in a car crash in March 2020. The woman, who has reportedly admitted that she faked her own death, is now out on bail, according to the article.

Hospital employee accused of skipping work on full pay for 15 years

A hospital employee in Italy is accused of fraud and extortion after he skipped work for 15 years but still received his pay. (See Italian hospital employee accused of skipping work for 15 years, BBC, April 21, 2021.)

During that time, the employee reportedly earned a total of 538,000 euros despite never turning up for work at the Ciaccio hospital in the southern city of Catanzaro.

The authorities are investigating six managers at the hospital in connection with the case, which is part of a larger police probe into absenteeism and suspected fraud in the Italian public sector.

The employee stopped going into work when he first started the job in 2005, and he allegedly threatened his manager to stop her from filing a disciplinary report in response to his absenteeism. According to the police, the manager later retired, but her successor and human resources never noticed the employee’s long absence from work.

Fraudsters steal millions in Hong Kong’s biggest phone scam

Fraudsters scammed a 90-year-old millionaire in Hong Kong out of 23 million pounds in what is the territory’s most lucrative-ever phone scam. (See Hong Kong woman loses £23m in largest-ever phone scam, by Tim Wyatt, The Independent, April 21, 2021.)

Con artists posing as security officials from mainland China told the victim that criminals had stolen her identity and that she should transfer her money into their account for safekeeping pending an investigation.

Police have arrested a 19-year-old student in connection with the crime after a domestic helper suspected wrongdoing and alerted the victim’s daughter.

The student had visited the victim’s mansion in Hong Kong’s upscale Peak neighborhood to give her a phone to contact the fraudsters.

According to the article, Hong Kong, which has one of the world’s highest concentrations of ultra-rich people, saw an 18% rise in phone scams in the first quarter of 2021. Police said that a total of 350 million Hong Kong dollars (32 million pounds) had been stolen in such cases so far this year.