Bavaria: Elderly hands over savings and gold to scammers

Passau/Hauzenberg (dpa/lby) - Telephone scammers stole tens of thousands of euros and gold from an elderly woman.

Bavaria: Elderly hands over savings and gold to scammers

Passau/Hauzenberg (dpa/lby) - Telephone scammers stole tens of thousands of euros and gold from an elderly woman. At least the suspected money collector was caught. The police announced on Wednesday. The 21-year-old was taken into custody.

The 83-year-old from Passau had been called by a man who said he was a police officer and introduced himself by the name "Schmidt". He told the elderly woman that a Romanian burglar had been arrested and that a note with the 83-year-old's name had been found on him. In several phone calls, the caller managed to convince the woman that her valuables and property were in danger.

According to the information, the elderly woman withdrew tens of thousands of euros from accounts at two different banks. She handed over the money to an initially unknown collector on Wednesday last week. A day later, the fraudsters called the 83-year-old again and were able to convince the woman to hand over gold worth tens of thousands of euros to the same collector on the same day.

After that, the scammers called a third time. According to the police, the 83-year-old wanted to hand over money again. However, the collector did not show up at the agreed time. The woman therefore asked a police station for "Mr. Schmidt". As a result, the dizziness was finally noticed.

After an extensive search, the police were able to identify who was collecting the money. The 21-year-old was arrested last Friday near the 83-year-old's home. The police did not find the gold and money that the woman had given him earlier when he was arrested.

The alleged perpetrator is said to have acted as a money collector in a similar case of fraud in Hauzenberg (Passau district).