Return change fraudsters arrested

The Zug police have published a warning against thieves using the ”return change” trick. The perpetrators often follow the same pattern in their fraud. Civilian investigators from the Zug Police were able to arrest two young men on 17 May 2021.

On Monday afternoon (17 May 2021), two ‘return change’ fraudsters from Romania tried their luck several times in the canton of Zug. In all three cases, the thieves stole additional return change.

In the afternoon, a 29-year-old man entered a grocery store on the Buonaserstrasse in Rotkreuz. At the checkout, the man then paid for his purchased items with a two-hundred Swiss franc note. When he received his change, he quickly hid the hundred-franc note given him by the cashier, and told her in a convincing voice that she hadn’t given him the correct return change. The cashier believed him, and handed him the supposed ‘missing’ one hundred-franc note. The man then quickly left the store.

Using the same procedure, the confidence trickster and his 28-year-old assistant, who acted as his driver, stole cash to the amount of two hundred francs in two other cases.

The civilian investigators of the Zug police were able to observe the incidents, and arrested the men shortly afterwards.

The two men then had to appear before the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Canton of Zug. The 29-year-old main offender was issued with a deportation order and given a two-year ban from re-entering Switzerland and Liechtenstein. His companion in crime was also deported.