40-year-old charged with money laundering in extensive fraud case.

A 40-year-old man from Esbjerg Municipality has been charged in an extensive case of fraud and money laundering. According to the South and South Jutland Police, the man is charged with money laundering totaling 418,119 Danish kroner, originating from so-called “Hi mom” fraud schemes.

The fraud involves victims receiving a text message from an unknown number, where the sender falsely claims to be their son or daughter. Typically, the message states that their phone has been stolen or lost, or that there is an urgent need for money to pay a bill quickly.

The police investigation currently includes 69 cases of fraud. The 40-year-old is suspected of laundering the money taken from the victims through several Danish and foreign accounts.

Simultaneously, the police are looking into a possible connection to the biker gang Comanches MC in Esbjerg.

“We always investigate broadly in the initial phase, and the preliminary investigation has given us a presumption that the criminal activity has connections to the biker gang Comanches MC in Esbjerg. Therefore, it is one of the directions our investigation centers around,” says Deputy Police Inspector Karsten Hulmose from the South and South Jutland Police.

According to the police, the case also has significance in the fight against organized crime.

“When the criminal activity in this case is presumed to have connections to a biker gang, it is also about us wanting to combat crime derived from criminal groups by all means possible,” says Deputy Police Inspector Karsten Hulmose.

Moreover, the 40-year-old man is charged with defrauding a large company in Esbjerg during the Tall Ships Races last summer. A person, posing as a representative of another company in urgent need of help over the phone, managed to obtain tools worth a total of 551,410.60 Danish kroner.

Some of the stolen items have since been recovered in connection with another police investigation and have now been returned to the company.

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