REGGIO CALABRIA The modus operandi is always the same: the phone call from a self-styled member of the police force, the totally invented story of the serious accident caused by a close relative and the request for cash or precious objects to be delivered immediately to an emissary of the elusive Agent or Carabiniere to prevent the relative alleged to be responsible for the accident from ending up in prison. As is now happening throughout the national territory, the city of Reggio Calabria has also become a destination of subjects who move around Italy every day waiting for the indication to come from the “operational base” to go and “help” the culprit’s family. The targets are always elderly people who are literally bombarded with phone calls simultaneously on mobile phones and landlines and faced with a very serious and urgent situation involving a relative who immediately needs as much money as possible to avoid worse trouble. The latest episodes in the city date back to May 28th and June 11th.
Scams in Reggio
In the first case, a lady in her eighties from Reggio was reached by multiple phone calls on the two telephone numbers in her possession and informed of a serious road accident caused by her son who needed a sum of money to avoid imprisonment. Dazed by the news, and blocked for more than an hour and a half on the two telephone lines to prevent her from blocking help from others, the elderly woman handed over 120 euros in cash to the telephone operator’s accomplice, who arrived a few moments later at her home. cash and jewelery worth a few thousand euros. The lady then, worried by the strange situation, she decided to interrupt the conversation and inform a friend who, having immediately noticed the scam, alerted the police. Having received the communication, the Flying Squad investigators quickly managed to identify the car used by the subject for the escape and report it to their colleagues from the Sala Consilina Traffic Police. The highway patrol, having started the search, blocked the vehicle with the subject on board and found the money and jewelery previously stolen from the victim. The young man of Campania origins was therefore reported in a state of freedom for aggravated fraud in collaboration with unknown persons.
Two arrested on suspicion of injury
Last week’s episode, very similar, risked turning into something much more serious for a man of almost ninety years old living in the city centre. The criminals, having arrived at the home of an elderly couple (cl. 37 him, cl. 47 she) and using the stratagem described above, they had managed to take possession of 2000 euros in cash and jewels weighing almost 200 grams. The husband, however, sensing that it might be a scam, attempted to recover his assets, provoking the reaction of the criminal who, in order to escape, he violently pushed the elderly man causing him to fall to the ground with the result of a head injury and a lacerated wound to the head with a prognosis of 15 days. The Flying Squad policemen, in this case too, quickly identified the car in which the perpetrators were travelling, who, in the meantime, had moved to the Catania area. Colleagues from the Catania Flying Squad, informed of the situation, managed, shortly afterwards, to block the vehicle with the two subjects on board; the subsequent search carried out at the B&B where they had stayed allowed the entire stolen goods to be recovered. For this last case, the local Public Prosecutor’s Office, having taken over the investigation, ordered the arrest of the suspect for both subjects as they are seriously suspected of the crimes of improper robbery and aggravated personal injury. The measure was carried out on 19 June by agents of the Flying Squad of Reggio Calabria with the collaboration of the Flying Squad of Naples and the police stations of Acerra and Ponticelli, where the suspects are residents. Following the validation judgement, the precautionary measure of house arrest was ordered for both.
