Man, 78, robbed in €100,000 con

THIEVES posing as a policeman and a water official have robbed a man in his 70s in the north of France of €100,000 after staging an attempted robbery.

The supposed water official had arrived first at the 78-year-old’s house in Cambrai and asked to read the meter.

He was followed minutes later by the second man, claiming to be a policeman and with an official-looking card, who accused the fake water official of being a thief and “arrested” him and took him away.

The “officer” returned soon afterwards and, as is usual, asked the old man to check that his valuables were still secure.

When the man showed the “officer” where he kept his valuables they were grabbed and the thief ran off. He escaped with gold jewellery, gold coins and €10,000 in cash.

• This scam is just one of many operating in France at the moment, with people receiving false phishing emails from people claiming to be EDF or GDF-Suez and trying to obtain access codes for banks or other personal information. Phone calls claiming to be from Microsoft or other similar companies are also trying to set up a scam to scramble people’s computers and claim money for “fixing” the problem.

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