Elderly Woman Tricked into Handing Over Valuables by Fake Relative in Naples

It was January 29 when Maria, a fictitious name, 83 years old and residing in Naples, had handed over 4,000 euros in jewelry and precious objects to her supposed nephew. Today, a 30-year-old man from Naples, the perpetrator of the deed, was arrested thanks to the investigations of the specialists of the Prosecutor's Office. The carabinieri of the Naples Chiaia station executed the precautionary custody measure in prison ordered by the G.I.P. of Naples, at the request of the Prosecutor's Office, with a criminal record for specific crimes, accused of aggravated fraud against an elderly person. The scammer had called the lady several times, pretending that her son would be arrested unless a large sum of money was paid or valuables were handed over. Following the insistent phone calls, the victim was thus induced to quickly collect and hand over all the gold and precious objects she owned at home to a man who, falsely identifying himself as a lawyer and friend of the son, was waiting for her outside her house. The investigations have made it possible to reconstruct exactly the dynamics of the criminal events, leading to the identification of the man, a 30-year-old from Naples, who had taken the gold and valuables from the hands of the elderly woman. The suspect has numerous and serious specific precedents, having received final convictions for other scams against elderly people carried out with a similar modus operandi. The investigations - according to a note signed by the prosecutor Nicola Gratteri - were coordinated by the Prosecutor's Office of Naples which, precisely in order to ensure a more effective counteraction to the growing and alarming phenomenon of scams against the elderly, has long established within the Seventh Section a thematic working group, specialized in investigative activities on such criminal conduct.