CATANIA – The Carabinieri of Catania have launched a campaign to raise awareness among citizens regarding the phenomenon of scams, often aimed at the detriment of the elderly, considered by the criminals to be most vulnerable, with meetings held mainly in senior centers and parishes. Among the scams foiled in the city and province, the criminals told a 72-year-old retired couple from Pedara that their daughter had run over a pregnant woman, asking them to pay the amount due immediately. The scammers, presenting themselves as policemen, tried to repeat the story of the accident to an 83-year-old widow, only to hesitate, however, about the name of the family member involved, making the potential victim suspicious.
A 69-year-old pensioner was even insulted by the scammer on the phone, before interrupting the conversation, evidently, after he had qualified himself as a police marshal. The same scenario occurred again at the end of May in Acireale and Aci Castello, for a total of seven scam attempts, all foiled thanks to the readiness of the victims to immediately contact the military. Thanks to the meetings organized by the Police, two women over eighty did not give the scammers time to talk about the usual fake accident by interrupting the phone call. However, the scammers called the doorbell directly to another elderly lady who lives alone in the center of Acireale, attempting to stage the fake accident but she did not open the door.
A 79-year-old elderly lady from Sant’Agata Li Battiati, who immediately understood that it was a scam, called the police, who organized a real trap, making themselves found in the elderly woman’s house, at the moment in which the scammer showed up to collect the money and jewelry. The man, a 30-year-old from the province of Naples, was arrested. Then he touched a 72-year-old woman from Biancavilla, same scene and same story as the accident involving the lady’s niece. The scam was discovered by the elderly woman’s daughter, who called the military who managed to identify and report a 21-year-old Neapolitan man and his 55-year-old accomplice. And so, for example, for a woman from Santa Venerina, who immediately called 112 to ask for advice. Also emblematic are two scams involving broken mirrors, which failed thanks to the cunning of the victims.
The two cases, one in Calatabiano and the other in Acireale, are very similar to each other, in fact the scene is always the same, the scammer fakes the breaking of the mirror of his car due to an unsuspecting driver to whom, after throwing him a stone or in any case an object on the car, to make the classic noise of an impact, chases him and accuses him of breaking the mirror. The culprits, a 21-year-old from Syracuse in Calatabiano, while in Acireale a 19-year-old from Noto were reported. Another type of scam, for which the “cyber investigation” section of Catania is carrying out sophisticated technical investigations, is that of sending a text message or WhatsApp message, with which the victim is asked, posing as a relative and reporting that he or she has lost or broken cell phone, to be contacted on another account. At this point a dense exchange of messages begins at the end of which the fake relative asks the victim of the scam to send money for the purchase of a new phone.
