New court hearing for huge unpaid takeaway food scam. Twenty-four commercial businesses in Cremona and its province were targetedincluded luxury restaurantsfor a total damage of almost 9000 euros. A story that hit the headlines during the Covid lockdown period. Three women are under accusation for fraud.
During the lockdown the merchants received telephone purchase orders from the customer who pretended to be a person appointed by a regular customer. But then, once the goods were collected, no one paid the bill previously agreed. Often a was chosen quite expensive menu: in a restaurant, for example, they had been ordered escargot and pasta with truffles for a damage of 400 euros. In a pastry shop in Cremona, however, on 16 January 2020 one of the accused, who allegedly pretended to be a relative of a customer of the shop, had ordered a cake costing 46 euros which she had collected without paying the amount, on the pretext that it would be after customer to pay the bill. Which never happened.
Same modus operandi also in a shop in Cremonawhere they were given orders on the phone by a female voice bottles of wine, champagne and three kilos of coffee for an amount of 296 euros. “We had a mobile number with which we had been called,” said today the owner, who was not present that day in October 2020. There was only his employee in the restaurant, “who trusted me”. “To try to find a name”, explained the witness, “from the telephone number of my wife’s studio, a freelancer, we tried to call back that mobile phone to which no one had answered anymore. And surprisingly they called us back. She was a woman, she told us the name and asked the reason for the call. Talking to other people we then learned that others had also been scammed.”
The scam also took place in a pizzeria restaurant in Piadena, where a phone call had come. This time the voice was male. The scammer had introduced himself with the name and surname of a real customer of the restaurant and the restaurateur had trusted him. The customer had ordered pizzas, wines, liqueursto be delivered the same evening to Bishopric to her granddaughter. “We were in lockdown, it was convenient for us,” said the owner, who once he arrived in Vescovato found a girl on a bicycle waiting for him. “She was young, dark hair. I gave her the order.” However, no one had ever paid the bill.
Some of the owners of the defrauded premises decided to drop the complaint, while others, however, wanted to continue and testify at the trial. We will return to the courtroom on November 18th with the testimony of the investigators who discovered the scams.
Sara Pizzorni
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