Elderly woman gives scammers gold jewelry and money worth 25,000 euros

Created: 03/31/2022Updated: 03/31/2022 18:03

85-year-old surprised with shock call and grandchild trick.

© Carsten Rehder

An 85-year-old from Gauting was surprised on Wednesday with a shock phone call and grandchild trick.

She lost cash and jewelery worth around 25,000 euros.

Gauting - An 85-year-old elderly woman from Gauting was the victim of a scam on Wednesday.

She lost cash and jewelery worth around 25,000 euros.

The perpetrators combined the notorious grandchild trick with a "shock call", as Gauting's police chief Andreas Ruch reported.

"Unscrupulous thieves pulled out almost all the stops," says his press release.

The strangers brought the older woman "completely upset" and "all her gold jewelry".

It was only when the woman from Gautingen gave the fraudsters the jewelry on her front door that she contacted her real grandson in Munich.

According to Ruch, he told her that she had "committed a great stupidity".

The chronology of the case shows the audacity and the way in which the 85-year-old was taken by surprise: At around 5.30 p.m. the elderly woman received a call on her landline from a young man whom she mistook for her grandson because of his voice.

He explained to her that his mother (i.e. her daughter) had run over a cyclist in Munich with her car.

The cyclist who did not survive the accident is a father of two from Ukraine.

Because of his death, the grandson and his mother would now be with the police in Munich.

Then suddenly an alleged "Chief Commissioner Dietrich from Revier 12" was on the phone.

The fake police officer explained the same facts to the woman again.

She said her daughter was going to jail because of the accident.

However, detention can be avoided with bail.

The “supreme commissioner” then asked for cash, jewelery or gold coins.

The 85-year-old looked for everything she found in her apartment.

"The pensioner even had to weigh her gold jewelry and write a letter to the public prosecutor's office in Munich that she would raise the bail for her daughter," writes Ruch in his report.

Then the alleged policewoman explained to her that a "colleague Novak" would pick up cash and jewelry for the bail shortly.

20 minutes later, a woman was actually standing in front of the pensioner's front door.

The woman from Gauting handed her several hundred euros in cash in an envelope and the jewelry in a box.

The "super inspector" was on the phone the entire time and strictly forbade her victim to speak to the woman at the door.

The 85-year-old could only roughly describe this afterwards: about 1.60 meters tall, corpulent, dressed completely in black.

Notes to the police on z(0 81 41) 61 20. She advises always being suspicious of such calls and not letting strangers into the apartment.

"The police will never call you on the emergency number 110," says Ruch.

Information on personal data and on existing valuables should be omitted and not respond to claims.

"The real police or public prosecutor's office will never ask you for cash, money transfers or valuables in order to conduct investigations." Another tip: "Healthy suspicion is not impolite: ask for your official ID card from alleged officials." mm