State Police personnel on duty at the Fano police station implemented control and investigation activities, identifying the perpetrators of two scams also through the monitoring and analysis of the city video surveillance system and railway transits, in collaboration with the Railway Police and Local Police.
The agents managed to track down two fraudsters responsible for scams against the elderly in Fano, recovering all the stolen goods in one case and part of it in the other.
The modus operandi ascertained by the agents was clearly outlined: the victim received a phone call on her landline with which an elusive doctor informed her that her daughter was in hospital in serious conditions and that, to save her life, he needed urgent injections of a life-saving drug from Switzerland costing 18 thousand euros. Realizing that she had been defrauded for a value of around 7,000 euros between money and jewelery delivered, the victim informed the police who would immediately start the investigation. The man was identified by the police station investigators and, after a few days, tracked down in Fano and reported to the Judicial Authority for the crime of fraud.
In the second case the structure of the scam is identical, with only a few terms varying: instead of the serious illness and the doctor, an imaginary member of the police force reported a serious road accident in which the victim’s son had incurred and needed money for the legal costs in order to avoid prison. The technique of making the first telephone contact on the landline, always at lunchtime and keeping the communication open for a long time so as not to make it easier to contact anyone, was also identical. The request in this case was for 4,112 euros for legal costs or, in the absence of this amount, for jewels. With the collaboration of the Local Police and the analysis of the city’s video surveillance circuit, the investigators identified a suspicious car which was traced to Forlì by police officers, finding inside all the jewels stolen from the woman. The man on board the vehicle was reported at large for the crime of receiving stolen goods.
The State Police’s advice to users is to pay close attention to the phone calls you receive and, in suspicious cases, to immediately report the fact to the emergency number 112, possibly via a mobile phone or by contacting a neighbour, without using the landline where the call was received.
