Five individuals have been arrested, with wider proceedings launched against a group of 17 persons, by the Prosecutor’s Office and Ministry of Internal Affairs for extortion of tens of millions of GEL from foreign citizens and money laundering.

Authorities said the members of the organised group had established fictitious “call centres” on the basis of Georgian enterprises, targeting citizens of various European countries with fraudulent “services”.

“The investigation conducted by the Prosecutor’s Office has established that during the criminal activity, members of the organized group fraudulently misappropriated large sums of money belonging to citizens of Germany and other countries and legalized illegal income obtained through the crime.

According to the criminal plan, the members of the group organized a call center in Georgia. The target of the criminal group was citizens living in different European countries.

The so-called call center, in accordance with the pre-designed plan, contacted citizens of Germany and other countries, provided them with fictitious names and false information about the location of their company and offered to trade in currencies, crypto currencies, etc.

The detainees face 9 to 12 years in prison if convicted”, - said a representative of the Prosecutor’s Office at the briefing.

As he added, proceedings had also been started against other foreign nationals involved in the group, with the support of the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation and in the framework of a joint international investigation conducted with Georgia’s participation.