LECCE – A 28-year-old man from the province of Naples was arrested in flagrante delicto for aggravated fraud by the Flying Squad and the police of the Lecce Police Headquarters.
The young man was about to obtain money and jewels from a 94-year-old using the classic technique of a false call from an alleged policeman.
The agents were alerted by the operations center which received several reports of alleged scams taking place in Lecce by self-styled carabinieri. The operations room sent patrols to the site of the latest report, coming from the son of a 94-year-old.
Upon returning home, the son found his mother standing behind the door holding cash and jewelry. The woman said she received a call from a policeman who told her that her two children were both in the barracks because one of them had been arrested after a serious accident.
To “resolve the situation”, the woman would have had to hand over all the money and jewels she had at home to a “colleague” who would come to pick them up shortly. Suspicious, the son called 112.
Subsequent investigations led officers to identify another potential target of the scam, who had reported an attempted scam the same morning. The modus operandi was identical: a call from a man posing as a police sergeant informed her that her son had been involved in an accident in which an eight-year-old girl had been injured.
To “fix things”, the woman would have had to pay 4,800 euros or hand over the family jewels. In the house with the old woman there was her daughter who, sensing the scam, called 112.
Thanks to the timely intervention of the police and the collaboration of the victims, the scammer was arrested and is now at the disposal of the judicial authorities.
