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Drunk Swiss holidaymaker takes Austrian couple on drive from hell

A drunk Swiss man gave a couple from Tyrol a trip from hell when he got into the car in which they were sitting and raced off on a joyride which could have ended in tragedy.

Published: 7 February 2017 12:18 CET
Drunk Swiss holidaymaker takes Austrian couple on drive from hell
Photo: Paul Gillingwater

The drive ended with him crashing the car into the wall of a tunnel. “We thought we were going to die,” 35-year-old passenger Mario told the Krone newspaper.

He had been sitting in the back of the parked car which belonged to a friend of his, chatting with his girlfriend Andrea (28), outside a bar in Sölden on Saturday night. Their friend had gone into the bar to drop something off. Mario said that their friend left the motor running as he had gone into the bar for a matter of minutes. “Almost as soon as he left this crazy man jumped in the car and took hold of the steering wheel,” he said.

“I shouted at him and told him to get out, but he just laughed and drove off,” Mario said, adding that the Swiss man had threatened to kill them both if they didn’t get out of the car, but had then driven off at speed before they could open the door.

The man was driving between 140 and 160 km/h. He then made a sudden stop and the frightened couple tried to get out of the car but he accelerated again – driving onto the pavements and into guardrails, and almost hitting a pedestrian.

“I dialled the emergency number and asked the police to help us, but at this point I thought it was all over,” Mario said. “I tried to grab him from the back seat and choke him but he hit me and continued at full speed into a tunnel. It was then that I blacked out,” he added.

Hubert Juen, the head of Imst district police, said that the entire journey lasted for around two kilometres. “The Swiss man deliberately crashed into the tunnel wall but we’re still not sure what his motive was. He was well over the drink driving limit and we are investigating whether drugs were also involved.”

The man, who was on holiday in Austria, is now in police custody and will be charged with attempted murder. He has told police that he has no memory of the incident.

Mario and Andrea suffered slight spinal injuries, as well as shoulder and rib injuries and facial abrasions. Mario believes they are lucky to be alive. “Next to the tunnel where we crashed is a 100 metre deep canyon, if we had gone down that no one would have survived,” he said.

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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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