A German national alleged to be part of a sprawling international scam operation run out of Georgia has been arrested in Tbilisi and now faces extradition to Germany. The arrest marks a new phase in Europe’s intensifying efforts to dismantle online fraud networks that have swindled victims out of hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide.

According to a report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the suspect – whose name has not been publicly disclosed – was detained by Georgian authorities in mid-October following an extradition request from Germany’s Central Office for Cybercrime in Bavaria. The office described the man as a “key player” in a Tbilisi-based scam call center exposed earlier this year by investigative journalists.

The man, reportedly from Western Germany, is accused of commercial and organized fraud – charges that carry severe penalties under German law. ZDF, a German broadcaster that partnered with OCCRP and Paper Trail Media on the Scam Empire investigation, reported that the suspect had operated under several aliases while deceiving victims and later ridiculing them after taking their money.

The arrest follows the March publication of Scam Empire, an extensive investigation conducted by OCCRP, Sweden’s SVT, Paper Trail Media, and 29 other media outlets. The report unveiled a sophisticated call center network run from the Georgian capital by a company called A.K. Group, which used deceptive investment schemes to defraud unsuspecting individuals across Europe and North........

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