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Switzerland’s escaped killer arrested in Germany

A convicted killer who escaped from a psychiatric hospital in Switzerland last week has been arrested in southern Germany.

Published: 3 June 2016 16:42 CEST

Switzerland’s escaped killer arrested in Germany

Kris Van Ooijen was apprehended in southern Germany. Photo: Aargau cantonal police

Kris Van Ooijen, 22, was apprehended thanks to “the very good cooperation” between police in the two countries, Aargau cantonal police said in a statement on Friday.

Switzerland has now put in a request to extradite him back to Aargau, with a court to decide in which secure institution he should be placed.

Van Ooijen escaped from the Königsfelden psychiatric hospital in Windisch in the early hours of last Saturday morning.

In 2013 he was convicted of murdering a 17-year-old girl when he too was only a teenager.

After connecting online, the killer and his victim met in person in August 2009 when Van Ooijen battered the girl to death with a piece of wood and hid her body in a forest in Sessa, in the canton of Ticino. It wasn’t until June 2010 that the victim’s body was found by a hiker.

Convicted by Aargau’s youth court, Van Ooijen was judged to have a severe mental disorder.

He was sentenced to four years in prison – the maximum sentence for a minor – before being placed by the court in a secure psychiatric ward.

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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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