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Mother cleared of killing tot with hard drugs

A 25-year-old woman accused of causing the death of her baby girl by injecting cocaine and heroin into a milk bottle was acquitted by a Saint Gallen district court for lack of evidence.

Published: 5 November 2012 22:28 CET
Mother cleared of killing tot with hard drugs
File photo: Psychonaut

The court verdict came on Monday after the prosecution alleged the woman added the lethal drug cocktail to the bottle before feeding her child.

The seven-month-old infant died in a Saint Gallen hospital on May 9th 2009.

A blood test showed that she had three times the lethal dose of drugs for an adult in her body.

The case has attracted national media interest.

The woman declared her innocence, telling the court: “She was my little girl — my flesh and blood,” according to an account of the case by Blick.ch.

“It was not intentional.”

She said her former boyfriend had hidden the drugs in her kitchen cupboard where the baby food was kept, suggesting the drugs had accidentally become mixed up with the milk, Blick.ch reported.

The prosecutor argued that the 25-year-old was motivated to kill the child because the girl stood in the way of her relationship with her ex-boyfriend with whom she was “infatuated”.

He added that a possible additional motive was a bid to quieten the baby so the woman could have a quiet night with her boyfriend.

The woman’s defence lawyer argued that nobody knew what happened, Blick.ch said.

The court judgment found that “most likely the drugs were added by an act of the mother”.

However, it added that the lack of evidence “allows for only an acquittal”.

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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.

Published: 18 April 2024 13:20 CEST
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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