The State Police of Matera arrested two young people, aged 23 and 21, both from Naples: attempted aggravated fraud in competition, to the detriment of elderly people, is the hypothesis of the crime.
The facts date back to last April 9, when the emergency numbers 113 and 112 received several phone calls from elderly people living in this capital, reporting scam attempts that had just occurred. The method used by the telephone operators was that of the “self-styled policeman”, who told the victim of an accident that had occurred to a relative, and then requested money and valuables and resolved the issue, avoiding arrest.
The agents of the Flying Squad, alerted by the Operations Room of the Police Headquarters, began an intense control activity in the area, identifying a FIAT 500X in the city center, which could have belonged to the fraudsters. Once an initial check was carried out, the occupants of the car were identified, two young Neapolitans, who were unable to provide plausible reasons to justify their presence in Matera. Furthermore, the car was found to have been rented a few days earlier in Naples.
Suspected of being the “couriers” of the scam attempts that had just occurred, they were searched and found in possession of a mobile phone, on whose Google maps application two addresses were stored, corresponding to the homes of two elderly people recently contacted by the fake policeman.
According to the investigations carried out by the investigators, a “telephone operator” had contacted one of the victims, posing as a policeman and keeping her on the phone for many minutes, while the woman – worried about the fate of her son, who she had been led to believe had hit a pedestrian who had ended up hospital, in serious condition – complied with the request, preparing a substantial sum of money in cash, plus the valuables he kept at home, to deliver it to the elusive “colleague” of the self-styled policeman, who would arrive shortly thereafter. However, two minutes before the collection, the police officers caught the alleged couriers red-handed, ruining their plans and preventing the scam.
The two men, therefore, were arrested for the crime indicated above and placed at the disposal of the judicial authorities.
