The Fake Officer's Deception

A suspected 'serial scammer', believed to be responsible for two successful frauds and four attempted ones against elderly residents in various municipalities of the island of Elba (Livorno), posing as a fake police officer, has been arrested by the Carabinieri of the operational and mobile unit of the Portoferraio company, also supported in the execution phase by colleagues from the Naples-Poggioreale station, in execution of a pre-trial detention order in prison. This was announced by the Carabinieri in a statement explaining that he is a 47-year-old from Campania, already known for similar reports, stopped in Naples. The measure, it is explained, was motivated by the risk of reoffending, and it was highlighted, 'the very method of the crimes, considered symptomatic of belonging to a larger and more branched criminal organization within which, at least in the cases under review, the 47-year-old would operate as a material executor and therefore, to be considered socially dangerous'. The investigations, coordinated by the Livorno prosecutor's office, date back to last month, at the beginning of January, when a 90-year-old woman reported being contacted by a fake police sergeant who asked her for money as compensation for a car accident caused by her son, who was allegedly in custody at the police station. The promptness of the elderly woman, who immediately contacted her son, foiled the scam. On the same morning, an over-eighty woman from Elba received the same call, again without success. Finally, a third woman, aged 85, fell into the trap, ending up handing over approximately 2,000 euros in gold jewelry to the scammer who showed up at her home. From the victims' testimonies and surveillance camera footage, investigators were able to reconstruct the identity of the perpetrator who moved around the island, between Marciana, Rio, Capoliveri, and Porto Azzurro, in a white utility vehicle. The last successful scam against a woman over ninety living in Rio, who handed over jewelry worth 3,000 euros to the man, allowed the Carabinieri to close in on the suspected perpetrator, as the description provided by the last victim fully matched the elements acquired so far. Further developments have led to attributing to the arrested man two more attempted scams against two other elderly women, aged 91 and 83. In this case too, surveillance cameras recorded, confirming his presence, the white utility vehicle used by the scammer at the times when the attempted scams occurred.