The scams carried out by the gang in Naples, but above all in Rome and Lazio. The police also discovered a sort of manual on how to carry out the scams.
A gang dedicated to scams against the elderly, based in Napleswas defeated this morning by the police: there are 17 arrests (7 in prison, 10 under house arrest). The scams were committed in the Campania capital, but especially in the provinces of Rome, Viterbo and Latina: the investigations, in fact, were conducted by the Carabinieri of the Operational Unit of the Roma Trionfale company and coordinated by the Capital Prosecutor’s Office; are approximately 80 incidents were contested to the gang, a real criminal association, as discovered by the military’s investigative activity.
Scammers’ plot to defraud the elderly discovered
The scammers’ modus operandi was the unfortunately well-known one used by criminals who defraud the elderly. A “telephone operator” called the intended victim pretending to be a lawyer, a policeman or a postal worker and making a request for money to pay for a package or to get a relative involved in a road accident out of trouble; later, a courier would come by to collect the money, or in some cases jewels or other precious objects. Only after a few hours did the elderly people, speaking with the relatives in question – naturally unaware of everything – discover the scam.
During the searches of the suspects, the carabinieri, in addition to seizing hundreds of telephone cards, dozens of mobile phones and a large quantity of jewellery, also found a manual, a script on which were written the sentences to say for defraud the elderly.
