- Fake police officers robbed car dealers in the canton of Zurich.
- They posed as officers and stole cash from rest stops.
- The police arrested two suspected perpetrators in the canton of Friborg.
- A Romanian and a Swiss man are now in custody.
In the middle of the night at the end of April at the Forrenberg Nord service area in Seuzach ZH, several people pretended to be police officers to a Bulgarian car dealer. During the fake police check, the perpetrators were shown the cash they were carrying and then fled with the money.
At the beginning of May 2025, a similar incident occurred again, also in the middle of the night, at the MyStop Süd service area in Affoltern am Albis ZH. This time the victims were three Ukrainian car dealers. As the perpetrators got into their getaway vehicle and drove away, one of the victims tried to grab them. The perpetrators beat the victim and dragged him several meters. As a result, she suffered injuries.
Accused in custody
As the Zurich Canton Police announced on Wednesday, the police corps and the Public Prosecutor II of the Canton of Zurich carried out “intensive and extensive investigations” in the following months. Of the several unknown perpetrators, they were able to identify two suspected men in the canton of Friborg.
At the end of 2025, the Freiburg cantonal police, in cooperation with the Zurich law enforcement authorities, arrested a 35-year-old Romanian national and a 42-year-old Swiss citizen.
The two men are suspected of being involved in the two attacks in spring 2025 in different configurations. The Compulsory Measures Court of the Canton of Zurich placed the two accused in custody.
Daniel Krähenbühl (dk) has been working for 20 minutes since 2017. He heads the Zurich and Lucerne department with a focus on urban politics, crime, society and research.
