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Murder of Lucie Trezzini: trial next week

A 28-year-old man, known only as Daniel H, goes on trial next week for the murder in 2009 of the 16-year-old au-pair, Lucie Trezzini.

Murder of Lucie Trezzini: trial next week

On the day in question, Daniel H lured Lucie to his apartment in Baden with promises of modelling jobs.

Prosecutors say he had approached approximately 110 girls and young women with similar offers until Lucie finally agreed to accompany him.

Having bought an estimated four grams of cocaine from Langstrasse, and having consumed half, Daniel H came across Lucie on his way to the station, online news website Blick reported.

He promised that she could easily make 500 francs ($546) with just a couple of hours of work that afternoon at a jewellery show in Baden.

Taking her back to his apartment, he drank beer and continued to take cocaine. There he pretended to prepare for a photo-shoot, fixing a black bed-sheet to the bed, and setting up a floor lamp.

According to the indictment, Daniel H spent a long time deliberating whether or not to commit the crime. Having decided to go ahead with it, he fetched part of a dumbbell from his office.

Rejoining Lucie in the bedroom, he proceeded to beat her repeatedly with the metal bar until she lay motionless on the floor. In order to be sure he had killed her, he then took a carving knife from the kitchen and slit her throat.

He used the pillows and sheets from the bed to try to mop up the blood, Blick reported.

Following the murder, Daniel H visited his parents, who claim they saw nothing unusual in his behaviour. He then called his girlfriend, before lying down to sleep next to Lucie’s body.

He later told police that he saw no sense in his life anymore, having lost his job as a chef and having had problems with his girlfriend. He said he had committed the crime in order to be locked away forever.

In the following days, he carried on drinking and tried to clean away the bloodstains.

After Lucie had been missing for four days, police finally located her body at the apartment. Daniel H had fled the scene but he was found in Zurich a few days later.

At the time of the murder, Daniel H was on parole for having nearly beaten another woman to death following a cocaine binge in 2003. The prosecutor is hoping for life imprisonment.

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CRIME

How to avoid the ‘police’ phone scam in Switzerland

The Swiss government has issued a warning about an increasing number of fake calls purporting to be from police. But there are ways to avoid this scam.

How to avoid the 'police' phone scam in Switzerland

Switzerland’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has been monitoring the phenomenon of fake calls from alleged police authorities for nine months now.

But in the last three weeks, reports of this scam have almost tripled, the NCSC said, indicating just how widespread it is.

What is this about?

The scam begins with a call coming, allegedly, from police or another Swiss authority.

A voice, which the NCSC describes as ‘robotic’, informs the person who answers the call that their personal banking data is involved in criminal activities, or makes a similar alarming (but false) claim.

According to the NCSC, “it is not a person who calls, but a software The machine randomly tries Swiss phone numbers throughout the day. If the number is invalid, it simply moves on to the next one.”

“By using this software, the number of calls that can be made is virtually unlimited. It could go through practically all the phone numbers in Switzerland in a day,” the Centre adds.

After raising alarm about your bank account, the fake ‘policeman’ will urge you to “press 1” to be put in touch with a human being and obtain more information.

If you do this and, worse yet, divulge your personal data to the caller, you risk having your computer and credit card hacked.

What should you do (and not do) if you get this call?

The most obvious answer is to immediately hang up because, as the NCSC explains, “real police never play recorded phone messages. They also never ask for money or sensitive personal data over the phone.”

To that end, the Centre recommends that anyone receiving this call: 

  • Should hang up as soon as you hear the recorded message
  • Not press 1, or any other numbers, during the telephone conversation
  • Not get drawn into a conversation.
  • Never grant access to your computer, not even via remote maintenance software.
  • Never reveal prepaid card activation codes.

A fake tax refund

While the ‘police scam’ is the latest attempt at extortion reported to the NCSC, it is far from a unique case.

Scores of them are reported to the authorities each year, including the one reported earlier in 2024.

It involved phishing emails about alleged tax refund entitlements.

However, the link in the email leads to a phishing page. 

Here too, authorities advise to ignore these emails, not click on the link, and not enter any personal data on the phishing page.

READ ALSO : The common scams foreigners in Switzerland need to be aware of

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