«I’m the postmaster, your nephew is here, has to pick up a package a lot importantbut dyou have to pay 3,200 euros to collect it. A friend will come by to take the money.” At 2pm on May 23rd, to an 86-year-old woman who lives in Via IV Novembre, in Bergamo, this phone call comes. Whoever talks to her is a scammer. He calls her on her landline, makes her chat, asks for her cell phone, even hers, her daughter’s, tells her that if she doesn’t pay her mother (i.e. the old woman’s daughter) she will end up in trouble. Let alone a grandmother if she doesn’t help her grandson and her daughter. Meanwhile, the fake director entertains her on her cell phone for half an hour, to prevent her from calling her daughter. And someone keeps making her daughter’s phone ring to check that he isn’t busy. When her supposed friend rings her doorbell, the old woman has scraped together 150 euros in cash and in a paper bag he prepared gold chains, bracelets, rings, even a watch, which in total are worth around 3,500 euros.
Once everything has been delivered, the old woman calls her daughter, alarmed at what happened to her grandson. Her daughter immediately understands that her mother has fallen into a trap. And just as immediately the agents of the Flying Squad of the Bergamo police station rush to the train and bus station. Despite the handbooks, the meetings in centers for the elderly, the appeals of the parish priests, the cases are still numerous. By now the police have figured out the trick: with the broad description of the fake friend they go towards the regional train for Milan, they get there as he is about to leave, they make him stop for a few minutes. There they find SG, without documents and a ticket to Naples under another name.
At the police station the boy admits and removes the jewels from the undergarments, handing them over. He is 20 years old, comes from the province of Naples. At the immediate trial before judge Roberto Palermo, defended by the lawyer Rocco Gargano, he admits. He apologizes and explains her story. He says he has a job as a factory worker, that he had been in an accident with a rental car and that he had to pay for the damages. He says little about the rest. He claims to know very little. If not for having met a person (he doesn’t remember the name) at the bar, which he does not know and about which he has given no information, through an acquaintance. She had told him to go to Bologna, without too many explanations. He took the train from Naples, fell asleep and ended up in Milan. Then, the stranger also told him to go to Bergamo. He arrived at 11, would have received 5-10% of the proceeds from the theft-scam.
The police explained in court that there is an organization behind these trips to defraud the elderly. The young man had two cell phones, one of his own and one to communicate with the “instigator”. He has no criminal record: «I have never done anything, if I hadn’t had this money problem I wouldn’t have done it. I am sorry.” The police explained that young people with no criminal record are chosen precisely to avoid that, if filmed by cameras, they match the photo signals. The photo was taken of him at the police station and Granny recognized him.
The prosecutor asked for the obligation to reside in the municipality of residence, where the young man lives with the parents (arrived by midnight train from Naples): «He is not truly repentant and has not provided information». For his lawyer, the version according to which he didn’t know who really spoke to the granny and planned everything is credible “because these organizations are structured in such a way as not to trace who makes them up”. He asked that no precautionary measure be applied or one compatible with the possibility of working. The judge decided for the obligation to report to the judicial police four times a week underlining the gravity of having stolen the trust of an elderly lady to profit from it. The trial was postponed to July 12.
«No operation of this kind can be carried out over the telephone, do not trust it – the police recommends -. If they ask you for money or jewelry, hang up, don’t be afraid of being rude.”
