The Accident That Never Happened: An Old Scam Still Lulls Vigilance

Late in the evening, a man called an 86-year-old woman from Białystok on her landline, reports the Podlaska Police. The caller posed as a police officer and said that her daughter had caused an accident by hitting a pregnant woman who was crossing the street. He added that she was facing prison. However, there was a way out of this situation. The senior citizen could have given her money for bail so that her daughter would avoid arrest.

The woman believed the story about the accident

The caller said that 250 thousand zlotys were needed because the lawyer had already taken care of the case. During the conversation, the woman from Białystok heard a woman crying on the receiver. She said that she only had 90 thousand at home. A policeman was supposed to come for the money. The woman packed over 90 thousand zlotys in a plastic bag and gave it to the man who came to her a few minutes later. She later went to bed, but in the middle of the night she called her granddaughter to find out what was going on. That’s when she learned that she had fallen victim to fraud.

A few days ago we described another fraud that the Podlaska Police dealt with – with a happy ending, because they managed to catch the fraudster red-handed. Police officers from the Białystok prevention department received information from the officer on duty that in one of the Białystok housing estates a man was going from apartment to apartment, scamming elderly people into renovating their windows. When the police arrived at the scene, the reporting person was already waiting for them with his mother.

A resident of Białystok said that today an unknown man came to his mother and offered to renovate her windows, for which she paid PLN 900. The renovation of the windows consisted of greasing the hinges with dishwashing liquid, which took about 10 minutes. The woman’s son showed the police a photo of the man who had been in her apartment.

The policemen were in the right place

Meanwhile, the clever “maintenance worker” continued to wander around the estate. He was let into another apartment, where the tenant did not ask about the price of the service. When the elderly gentleman was charged 1,100 PLN, he admitted that he did not have that much cash at home. The 45-year-old offered to take him to the bank. The senior agreed and gave him the money he had withdrawn. Luckily, there were uniformed officers nearby who recognized the fraudster.

The 45-year-old did not lose his cool. He confirmed that he had been in the apartment of the woman and the man and had not deceived anyone, because he had presented them with his offer, which they had accepted. As the police established, the same man had also defrauded two people last month, while providing window and door repair services, for which he was charged. The man was detained and also faced fraud charges. For this crime, the penal code provides for a sentence of up to 8 years in prison.