When the Perpetrators Are Abroad: Investment Fraud and the Limits of German Crime Statistics

Germany's Police Crime Statistics (PKS) for 2025 record 3,974 cases of investment fraud under Section 263 of the Criminal Code in the core tables, a decline of 12.5 percent. The same statistics record 28,465 cases in a separate set of tables covering offences committed from abroad, an increase of 76.2 percent. That second set of tables, the PKS-Ausland, receives almost no public attention.

The numbers concentrate there. 87.7 percent of all registered cases of this offence and 84.3 percent of the combined damage of more than 1.5 billion euros sit in the foreign-offence tables. Registered foreign damage alone reached 1.28 billion euros in 2025, more than double the 564.8 million euros recorded in 2024. 91 percent of the foreign cases ran through the internet. The clearance rate stands at 4.2 percent, and in 93.7 percent of cases not even the country of offence could be determined.

Cybertrading fraud and pig butchering have no offence key of their own. Both disappear inside key 513200 for investment fraud, and the federal tables carry no crime-scene marker for cryptocurrencies. The BKA victimisation survey SKiD 2024 adds the final layer: roughly four out of five cyber offences are never reported at all.