"Grandchild trick" in Niederkassel Con man fakes Covid-19 disease and steals money
Niederkassel · With a perfidious variation of the so-called grandchild trick, a swindler has cheated an 82-year-old woman from Niederkassel out of a lot of money. The unidentified man claimed that he was seriously ill with Covid-19 and urgently needed money for an expensive operation.
As police reported on Wednesday, the single senior citizen had received a call from a suppressed phone number at noon on Tuesday. The male caller did not give a name and immediately began a confidential conversation with the 82-year-old. She thought she recognised an acquaintance on the other end who helped her often in her daily life.
The caller described that he had been hospitalised with Covid-19 and that his lungs were severely damaged. His life could only be saved by an operation costing 32,000 euros. The senior offered her help and promised to provide 10,000 euros as a private loan. She withdrew this sum at the bank under a pretext to the suspicious bank employee. Back at home, she continued talking to her supposed acquaintance on the phone: he had held the conversation on the line during her absence.
The telephone swindler now asked for jewellery, and the woman then packed gold jewellery worth around 5000 Euro into a bag. At 3.30 pm she met the person collecting it on Deutzer Straße near Martinstraße in Niederkassel-Rheidt. A slender man, about 1.65 metres tall, aged between 25 and 30 years, with dark short hair and dressed in blue jeans, accepted money and jewellery and then disappeared in an unknown direction.
Just under half an hour later, the 82-year-old's actual acquaintance appeared at her place. He had been worried because the senior citizen's telephone line had been busy for several hours. Now, according to the police, it dawned on the woman from Niederkassel that she had been deceived.
The criminal investigation department is looking for witnesses who can give details of the crime: Information to the police can be obtained by calling 02241/5413221.
(Original text: GA Bonn, Translation: Mareike Graepel)
