Friday 27, October
78-year-old Berliner outsmarts con man, handing over bible instead of cash
The “grandchild trick” is a well known scam, used to prey on elderly people. Generally, it involves fooling them into believing that some close relative is in trouble and they are desperately in need of money.
In this case, a 78-year-old Berlin pensioner received phone calls back in February from two different women informing him that his daughter had fatally injured someone in a car accident. Impersonating a lawyer, they claimed his daughter was currently being held in custody and would be released only on bail of €79,000.
The man did not hesitate. He said he had €81,500 at home and would happily hand it over to secure his daughter’s release. Privately, though, he had other plans. Cooperating with the police, he arranged for a fake handover of cash, placing a copy of the bible in the bag instead of the expected banknotes.
A 27-year-old con artist was arrested, and will soon appear before the district court in Tiergarten. The pensioner had his bible returned.
