Thu, Oct 26th 2023
Police have busted a car check fraud ring in several cantons. A dozen suspects were arrested, including a Bern TCS vehicle expert and several car dealers. They allegedly inspected and resold old cars only as a sham.
The suspects were arrested in the cantons of Zurich, Aargau, Bern and Solothurn, as the Zurich prosecutor’s office announced on Wednesday. The fraud ring, however, is likely to be much larger: In total, there are thirty suspects, including a woman, it said.
In addition to a TCS vehicle expert and several car dealers, private car owners are also among those arrested. They are said to have jointly inspected old cars that were in defective condition in several cases only as a sham. Then they would have redeemed or resold them in several cantons.
Some cantons have outsourced vehicle inspection to TCS.
TCS members in these cantons no longer have to go to the road traffic office, but can bring their car to the TCS inspector. In Bern, where this is possible, one of the inspectors is now alleged to have participated in this fraud.
The arrest operation took place on Tuesday and Wednesday. In the process, house searches had also been carried out. The suspects were handed over to the public prosecutor’s office in Zurich. The suspects now face charges of fraud, forgery of documents and – in the case of the TCS vehicle expert – official misconduct.
The thirty or so suspects come from Switzerland, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Slovakia. They are between 28 and 61 years old.
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