Ragusa: Spoofing and scams against elderly people with 30.000 euros collected, 26-year-old arrested

At the end of an investigation into the growing number of scams targeting the elderly, the Carabinieri have arrested a 26-year-old who committed a series of scams against elderly people in recent months.

The plot was always the same: the victims received a phone call from a self-styled Carabinieri marshal, who informed them that a close relative was under arrest as responsible for a serious road accident and that in order to proceed on his behalf, it was urgently necessary to pay a large sum of money.

However, it cost the scammer dearly: out of the nearly €30.000 he collected in just three of the contested episodes, he had an elderly woman hand over her ATM card with its personal code, and then went to various ATMs to withdraw large sums of cash, thus being caught on video surveillance cameras.

The Carabinieri reconstructed the criminal's movements, finally managing to proceed against him: the Prosecutor's Office has requested the Preliminary Investigation Judge to issue a precautionary prison measure.

Finally, a further warning comes from the Carabinieri regarding these criminal episodes perpetrated against the weakest and most defenceless sections of the population: the warning is to always pay the utmost attention to anyone requesting money and to immediately call 112 even in the presence of phone calls that only apparently come from numbers attributable to the Police. as there is an increasing use of the spoofing technique, where through the use of software and computer applications, scammers falsify the identity of the calling user, appearing more credible in the eyes of the victims.