The rules of the elder scammers were written on slips of paper. In pen with blue ink. Good scripts for every occasion, which the telephone operators – like “O’ chiatt”, the best of all, born Giuseppe Fedele, 29 years old – recited almost by heart. A real manual to be followed precisely to obtain almost always safe results. «Hello ma’am, I’m Carabinieri Marshal Domenico Primo: I don’t want to make you anxious, but this phone call is recorded. His son hit a person: I want to point out that he is fine and didn’t suffer a scratch, while the other is in hospital. They are operating on him urgently.”
Among the victims were also those who did not have children or grandchildren
The tenor of the calls to newly retired people but also to people over ninety was always the same: a mix of courtesy and decisiveness, alarmism and reassurances which were a prelude to financial requests to cover legal expenses, requests for compensation for damages or even, in the most serious cases, to release the relative arrested in the barracks. Some of the 80 victims of the gang defeated yesterday in the capital by the Carabinieri of the Trionfale company, coordinated by the deputy prosecutor Giovanni Conzo, were so influenced that they fell into the trap even if they had no children or grandchildren. A paradox for a phenomenon that has affected all of Italy with thousands of people targeted after being chosen at random on the white pages.
The investigating judge: «Unscrupulous against the elderly and frail sick»
For the first time in the history of scams on the elderly with a false policeman or a false lawyer, the “reports” used by the criminals’ telephone operators to deceive the victims, inducing them to hand over sums of money and even jewels to the group’s emissaries, were found. And again for the first time, the criminal association was recognized, accused of 13 of the 17 people arrested in Naples on the orders of the Roman investigating judge Andrea Fanelli, for whom the association had no “scruple about defrauding or threatening very elderly people and suffering from various pathologies, in conditions of particular fragility”.
A kilo of gold a week
The most used scam was the road accident scam – “With this they panic”, joked the scammers intercepted by the police with satisfaction – but in some circumstances the postal parcel scam sent by children and grandchildren was also used. In all cases, from September 2022 to March 2023, the gang members were able to collect up to 50-70 thousand euros per day and a kilo of gold per week.
The boss in prison and the «Banda della Magliana» chat
Holding the ranks of the organization was Giovanni Uccello, 55 years old, already detained. His group of scammers had a private chat with an indicative name – “Banda della Magliana” – on which photos of jewelery stolen from the elderly by deception were exchanged, but despite its “Roman” orientation it had set up two “telephone exchanges” in the heart of Naples, in via Cassano and via dei Gesuiti. «Can’t I find someone in Alfonso (the son) who wants to go down to work when I’m under house arrest? – the boss in prison himself said when intercepted –. If there’s a boy out there, one way or another you always get him or her mixed up.” In Rome, as in the rest of Italy, the terrified victims had to pay quickly and a lot for compensation and have him leave the barracks immediately.
«Granny, can you reach 10 thousand euros?»
“Granny, can’t it reach 10 thousand euros?”, provoked one of the gang while talking to a pensioner. If the victim took the bait, then the couriers, recruited in the squares of Naples among the unemployed and small criminals, were sent around Italy and sent to the place to collect money and jewels. Arm yourself with knives and brass knuckles, just in case. A large commission is up for grabs, even 10 percent of the loot. There was no shortage of disagreements over the gold rewards: “The other time it was more – a courier complained -, they always took 5-6 grams”.
2024-05-24 05:46:00
#panic #thousand #euros #stolen #day
