Vigarano Mainarda (Ferrara), “Mom, I ran over a pregnant woman, I need the money otherwise I'll go to jail”. Arrested a fraudster who pretends to be a member of the police force

In the early afternoon, a retired couple from Vigarano Mainarda were getting ready to sit down to dinner when they received a phone call. Their thoughts went to one of the many call centers. It wasn't like that, on the other end of the phone a female voice, broken by tears, who with disjointed speech was babbling about having hit a pregnant woman. The man thought of his daughter who was out of the province "...is it you? yes dad it's me... I hit a pregnant woman... I risk prison...".
The woman on the other end of the phone, in reality, was not the daughter but a skilled con artist and continued to claim that the person who had been hit was in a serious condition, insisting with requests for money and jewelry needed to pay the bail that would allow her to avoid going to prison.

The two spouses, lucid and mindful of what they had learned and heard from the Carabinieri regarding the ways in which scams are perpetrated against the elderly, immediately called 112.
The Carabinieri of the Cento Operational Unit and the Vigarano Mainarda Station immediately arrived on the scene while the phantom daughter, with the skills of a seasoned actress, continued to ask for money and jewels worth 12 thousand euros.

There was a lot of pressure on the victims, and the support provided by the Carabinieri was effective, reassuring them until the end of the negotiation, which culminated with the agreement to deliver a sum lower than the one requested. The methods for the delivery of money and jewelry that a “Carabiniere friend” of the woman would pick up at the home of the unfortunate victims were also established.

When the scammer knocked on the door and was about to collect the precious package, he was stopped by the Carabinieri.
A thirty-seven year old foreigner, unknown to the police and without a fixed abode in Italy, was thus identified and arrested. After completing the formal procedures, he was released as ordered by the Public Prosecutor on duty at the Estense Prosecutor's Office, as there were no grounds for requesting precautionary measures.

The Carabinieri's invitation is to immediately notify – via cell phone – 112 to help avoid falling into the scammers' net.