Ex-partner
During the court case in Cologne, it became clear that her ex-partner was the brain behind the fraud. He manipulated the vulnerable woman, pressured her to work in the required position at the municipality and supplied the underworld clients. Exactly how, the former civil servant does not know. “But he often went to the Netherlands, to Breda,” she says. And what she knows, she tells the judges.
Vanessa P.’s ex-partner brought old, fake passports, and she simply converted them into new, genuine German passports. The names and dates of birth for the passports were completely made up. Because the municipality did not check the submitted paperwork at the time, nobody noticed the fraud.
During the pandemic, accomplices also wore face masks and silicone caps on their fingers to remain unrecognizable. “I thought someone in the background would check that,” she says. But that didn’t happen, which is why the fraud remained unnoticed for a long time.
Slowly but surely the civil servant was coerced In court in Cologne, the woman describes how she was slowly but surely coerced by her ex-partner into making fake passports. She has had a difficult life behind her, during which she faced not only financial problems, but also mental health issues and a prescription drug and alcohol addiction. Furthermore, at her job at the municipality, she felt chronically overworked, insecure and isolated due to bullying by colleagues.
It was during this difficult period that she met her ex-partner, who easily manipulated her. According to P., he manipulated her so deliberately that he encouraged her to apply for a role where she would gain access to processing identity documents.
Did she profit from it?
Whether Vanessa P. gained much financially from the fraud remains a question. She herself states that it involved around 30,000 euros, but that this went mostly toward holidays and a new car.
German prosecutors believe it involves at least 100,000 euros, as indicated by encrypted chat messages from her ex-partner. That version is reinforced by the fact that police found 78,000 euros in cash during a search of her home.
