The classic scam of the mirror with the corrective of the broken clock. Between Prati and central Rome, the scam of the clock shattered in traffic by the car that passed next door is rampant. It’s just an attempt to extort money from those who don’t have the readiness to understand the scam or those who are scared to pay. Particular signs of the crook who wanders around on foot: young, skinny, Neapolitan accent with beard or moustache, depending on the period.
The young man pulls off the scam by walking around among the cars: “You broke my watch”. Dozens of reports
The alarm was sounded by the lawyer Eleonora Piraino who a few days ago came across the scammer: “Today at 4.55 pm while I was driving along viale Mazzini they tried to scam me with a broken watch. A blow to the car, from the mirror I see a boy waving his arms, I stop but I don’t get out, I open the window a little and the boy who reaches me running tells me that I touched him with the car and that I broke his watch ”. “The boy – adds the lawyer – claims that he had a witness and that further down there were also the policemen. When I told him to go and call them he vanished, I don’t know if it was because he saw that I had a little girl in the car or that I didn’t have a purse. Afterwards I made several laps with the car to see if I would meet him again to call the police, but nothing, he disappeared into thin air”.
The streets most traveled by the crook of the broken watch viale Mazzini, via Silvio Pellico, but also in viale Giulio Cesare. “You took me by the arm, look, you broke my watch”, thus begins the scammer after giving a quick tap to one of the cars slowed down in traffic. “He’s thin and nervous, short, long black hair tied back, ethnicity undefined even if he speaks Italian,” says another victim who managed to escape the scam.
On Friday evening, however, thanks to the promptness of a 70-year-old, the carabinieri managed to stop two other scammers in via Palmiro Togliatti, in their case specialized in the mirror scam. The two had accused the pensioner driving the car of hitting their car and breaking the mirror. The aim is obviously to ask for money to close the accident without resorting to insurance.
The man, however, refused to give the two any money, and shortly thereafter stopped a carabinieri patrol from the radio mobile nucleus that was passing on the Togliatti road and recounted what had happened. The military, having ascertained the model of the car and the direction of escape, traced the two scammers nearby.
For the two, both Romans aged 32 and 69, the complaint was filed for the crimes of attempted fraud in and carrying weapons and objects capable of offending. On the car they had a knife and some fragments of asphalt, often used to damage moving cars and fake a collision.
