Falsche Polizei: The Fake-Police Call in DE & AT

The short answer

The "falsche Polizei" or Schockanruf scam is a fraud across Germany and Austria where criminals phone you posing as the police — the Kriminalpolizei, the Bundeskriminalamt, even Europol — and claim your money is in danger from a burglary gang or counterfeit cash, then pressure you to hand cash and valuables to a courier at your door or move them to a "safe" account. No real police force in Germany or Austria ever collects your money or valuables by phone, and the caller ID showing 110 or 133 is spoofed. Hang up, tell someone, and report it on 110 (Germany) or 133 (Austria).

Most scam advice hands you a list of red flags and wishes you luck. That is fine, but it does not show you the thing that actually matters: how the manipulation is built. A red flag tells you something is wrong. A teardown tells you why it works in the first place — and that knowledge is much harder to forget when your phone rings on a Tuesday afternoon and a calm, official voice says your name and the word "Kriminalpolizei."

This is worth saying clearly for anyone living in or visiting the German-speaking world: the Austrian police have warned that the callers running this scam are often English-speaking, working from organised call centres and impersonating Interpol or Europol to reach internationals and expats, not only German-speaking locals. If you are an English speaker in Vienna, Berlin, Zurich or anywhere in between, this call can come for you too — which is exactly why this guide exists in English.

What follows is a reconstruction of a falsche-Polizei call, built from the patterns Austrian and German police describe in their own warnings. On the left, what the "officer" says. On the right, what is actually happening. Read it once and the spell breaks for good.

One note before we start: this is not a real police procedure being described. It is a crime being described. No German or Austrian police force collects cash or valuables from citizens by phone.

A recreated example of a Falsche-Polizei / Schockanruf scam: an iPhone incoming-call screen with the caller ID spoofed to display 'Polizei — Notruf 110', shown beside three red-flag tells explaining that the number is faked, that no real officer collects money by phone, and to hang up and call the police back on a number you find yourself. — What the spoofed call looks like, recreated. The caller ID is faked to read “Polizei” — and 110 (Germany) and 133 (Austria) can both be made to appear. Example only, not a real call; the screen is inert.

The call, line by line

00:00“Guten Tag, am I speaking with Frau [your surname]? This is Inspektor Berger, Kriminalpolizei. I'm calling on an urgent matter — please stay on the line, this is important for your safety.”

→Notice the work being done already. Your real surname (bought from a data broker or lifted from the phone book) signals they know you. A rank and a name manufacture authenticity. And the switch to your safety, in the first breath, frames everything that follows as protection rather than threat. The 'Kriminalpolizei' does not cold-call members of the public like this — but the word carries weight, and weight is the point.

00:30“We have arrested a burglary gang in your area overnight. On one of the suspects we found a list — and your name and address are on it. We have reason to believe your home and your savings are a target.”

→Here is the payload: sudden, personal fear. The threat is specific enough to feel real (a gang, a list, your address) and vague enough that you cannot disprove it. German and Austrian police say this 'a list with your address' line, and its twin — 'counterfeit banknotes are circulating and we must check your cash' — are the two dominant openings. Your heart rate just jumped. That is the point: fear is the off-switch for careful thinking.

01:15“I want to help you protect your money. But you must not tell anyone about this — not your family, and above all not your bank. The gang may have an accomplice working inside your bank. Do you understand? This must stay between us.”

→Isolation — the load-bearing wall of the whole scam. The one thing that reliably breaks the spell is a second opinion: a daughter, a neighbour, a bank teller would all say 'this is a scam' in seconds. So the script makes talking to them feel dangerous, even disloyal to the officer now 'protecting' you. The detail about a corrupt insider at the bank is deliberate — it pre-empts the exact person most likely to stop the handover. Every falsche-Polizei scam depends on keeping you alone.

02:30“For your security we need to take your cash and valuables into protective custody while we investigate. A plainclothes colleague will come to your door to collect them. Please gather your cash, your jewellery, and your bank cards now. Stay on the line with me the whole time.”

⚠The ask, dressed as protection. Note the vocabulary: 'protective custody', 'colleague', 'collect' — never 'give us your money'. The continuous call is a leash that keeps you inside their reality with no moment to think. And the doorstep courier — the 'Abholer' — is the signature of the German-Austrian version: unlike the US scam that ends at a crypto machine, here a real human arrives to carry your savings away. The moment valuables leave your hands, the money is gone.

03:30“If you cannot reach the cash today, go to your bank and withdraw it — but remember, say nothing about why. If anyone asks, tell them it is for a private purchase. This is to protect the investigation.”

⚠This is the line that turns the victim into their own thief. Because the withdrawal and handover are done by the victim's own hand, willingly, the bank treats it as authorised — which, as we explain in the reporting guides, is precisely the kind of loss banks in Germany and Austria are not obliged to refund. The coached cover story ('a private purchase') exists to slip past the one human — the bank clerk — trained to catch exactly this.

Step back and look at the shape of it

Strip away the specifics and every falsche-Polizei call is the same four moves, in the same order:

—Fear. A sudden, serious, personal threat — a gang with your address, fake cash in circulation — that spikes adrenaline and switches off careful thought.

—Rescue. The same caller becomes your protector, the one official who can keep your savings safe, so you bond to them instead of hanging up.

—Isolation. You are forbidden from telling family or the bank — often with a story about a corrupt insider — because one outside voice would end it instantly.

—Extraction. The handover, reframed as 'protective custody' or a transfer to a 'safe account', so your now-cooperative mind gives it up willingly.

Fear, rescue, isolation, extraction. Once you have seen the shape, you can spot it inside any costume — fake Kriminalpolizei, fake Europol, fake bank-security officer, the 'Enkeltrick' grandchild call where the voice claims to be a relative in trouble. The uniform changes; the four moves never do. It is the very same machinery we took apart in the digital-arrest teardown and the family-imposter call in the family-impersonation piece. The German-speaking world simply runs the police-uniform version harder than almost anywhere else.

From the field. People always say afterwards, "I can't believe I didn't just hang up." But that sentence misunderstands the scam. You are not meant to be reasoning during one of these calls — you are meant to be in shock, and shock does not fact-check. German and Austrian investigators describe victims kept on the phone for hours, walked to the bank, coached past the teller, and met at the door by a courier — all while a calm voice insists it is the only thing keeping them safe. The retiree who handed over a lifetime's savings is not a foolish person. They were placed, deliberately and skilfully, into a state where the thinking part of the brain goes quiet. Knowing the four moves in advance is what lets you recognise that state while you are inside it.

The one fact that collapses all of it

No real police force in Germany or Austria ever phones you to collect your cash or valuables, ever sends someone to your door to take them, or ever asks you to move money to a "safe" account — and the caller ID can be faked in seconds.

That is the master key. You do not need to assess whether the rank sounds plausible, whether the story about the gang holds together, or whether the number on your screen looks official (it can be spoofed to show 110 or 133, numbers the police never call out from). You need only this one fact, held firmly: the premise itself is impossible. The moment a call runs on "your money is in danger and we, the police, must take it or move it to protect you," you already have your answer. It does not matter how official it sounds. The procedure does not exist.

What to actually do

1Hang up. You owe a scammer no explanation, no argument, and no courtesy of staying on to 'cooperate'. Just end the call.

2Never hand cash, jewellery or cards to anyone who comes to your door, and never move money to a 'safe' account. No real officer will ever ask.

3Don't trust the caller ID, and don't call back a number they gave you. If you want to check, look up your local police yourself and call them — in Germany 110, in Austria 133.

4Break the isolation immediately. Tell a family member, a neighbour, your bank. Saying it out loud to another person is the fastest way to feel the spell break — and it is exactly what the script was built to prevent.

5Report it. In Germany, dial 110 or file a Strafanzeige at any police station; the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) coordinates the national picture. In Austria, dial 133 or email the Bundeskriminalamt at against-cybercrime@bmi.gv.at, and see our full Austrian directory below.

6If you already handed over money, move fast — call your bank about a recall right away. Speed is everything in the first 24 to 48 hours, and for a transfer you made yourself it may be the only lever that works.

And the rule that protects you from the second wave: once you have been hit, "recovery" callers may follow — a lawyer, a fund-recovery service, even someone claiming to be the real police or the BKA — promising to get your money back for an upfront fee. That is a different scam hunting the same victims, and we took it apart in the recovery-scams piece. Real German and Austrian authorities never charge upfront to recover money lost to a crime.

Where to report it, country by country

Reporting is downstream of prevention, but it still matters — it builds the intelligence picture that lets investigators dismantle these call centres. The fastest routes:

—Germany — emergency or live handover. Dial 110. To file a formal report, make a Strafanzeige at any police station (Polizeidienststelle); many Länder also offer an online 'Onlinewache'. The Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) coordinates nationally and publishes standing warnings about Schockanrufe.

—Austria — emergency or live handover. Dial 133. Report cybercrime to the Bundeskriminalamt at against-cybercrime@bmi.gv.at, and file an Anzeige at any Polizeiinspektion. The full Austrian map — Watchlist Internet, the FMA, the ZaDiG refund rules — is in our Austria guide.

—Austria — free human support. The Opfer-Notruf on 0800 112 112, run by WEISSER RING for the Justice Ministry, is free, around the clock, and available in German and English.

—Switzerland. Dial 117, and report to your cantonal police; the national reporting portal is at antifraud.ch (NCSC). The mechanics are the same — only the numbers change.

For the country-by-country detail on what your bank will and will not refund — the crucial point being that money you transferred yourself under deception is generally not refundable in the German-speaking countries — see the Germany reporting guide, the Austria guide, and the Switzerland guide.

If your phone is ringing right now

If you found this page mid-call, or just after one, take a breath. Nothing a scammer says on the phone can arrest you, fine you, or freeze your accounts — and no real officer is coming to your door to "protect" your savings by taking them. The power they have is borrowed entirely from your fear, and it evaporates the second you hang up and tell another human being what just happened.

You were not gullible. You were targeted by people who do this for a living, from organised call centres, using a script refined on thousands of people before you. Seeing the machine is the defence. Now you have seen it.

Remember the master key, and you never need the rest: the police do not phone you to take your money or your valuables — not in Germany, not in Austria, not anywhere.

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Common questions about the falsche-Polizei scam

What is the 'falsche Polizei' or Schockanruf scam?

It is a phone scam common across Germany and Austria where criminals impersonate the police — the Kriminalpolizei, the Bundeskriminalamt, sometimes Europol or Interpol — and claim your money or valuables are in danger. The usual cover story is that a burglary gang has been arrested with your address on a list, or that counterfeit banknotes are circulating and your cash must be 'checked'. The caller keeps you on the line and pressures you to hand your cash and jewellery to a courier who comes to your door, or to move it to a 'safe' account. There is no danger and no courier from any real police force. It is theft dressed as protection.

Can the real police in Germany or Austria phone me and collect my money or valuables?

No. This single fact collapses the entire scam. No German or Austrian police force, and no prosecutor, ever phones a member of the public to demand that they hand over cash, jewellery or bank cards to an officer or a courier, or move money to a 'safe' account. Real police do not collect your valuables for 'safekeeping', do not ask about what you keep at home, and do not resolve anything by keeping you on a long phone call. If a caller claims any of that, you are talking to a criminal — hang up.

The caller ID showed a real police number (110 / 133 or a local station). Doesn't that prove it's genuine?

No. Caller ID is trivially easy to fake. Scam call centres 'spoof' real numbers so your phone displays a genuine police line, a local station, or even the emergency number — German and Austrian police have repeatedly warned that 110 and 133 can be made to appear on your screen, even though those numbers are never used for outgoing calls. A matching number proves nothing. If you want to check, hang up and call the police back yourself on a number you look up independently — never a number or a callback the caller gives you.

Why do the victims, often older people, hand over so much?

Because the script is engineered to overwhelm judgement, and it targets emotion rather than logic. The caller manufactures fear (you or your savings are in immediate danger), then offers rescue (cooperate with me and I will protect you), then isolation (tell no one, not even the bank, or you'll compromise the operation). That sequence keeps the victim inside the caller's reality with no quiet moment to check. Austrian and German police note the targets are predominantly senior citizens, kept on the phone for hours, and that the gangs running it are organised and well-rehearsed. It is not about intelligence — it is about a practised manipulation.

What should I do if I get one of these calls in Germany or Austria?

Hang up. Do not argue, do not 'confirm' anything, do not stay on to prove you have nothing to hide. Never agree to hand cash or valuables to anyone at your door, and never move money to a 'safe' account. Then tell someone immediately, because isolation is the scam's main weapon. To report it: in Germany, dial 110 or file a Strafanzeige at any police station; in Austria, dial 133 or email the Bundeskriminalamt at against-cybercrime@bmi.gv.at. If you are shaken, the free Austrian victim helpline Opfer-Notruf on 0800 112 112 (WEISSER RING) takes calls around the clock in German and English.

Sources & further reading

Background and figures here draw on these authorities and reporting. Click any to verify.

"This is the Kriminalpolizei — your savings are in danger." The fake-police call in Germany and Austria, taken apart line by line.