An unemployed 41-year-old from Marseillais was sentenced to four years in prison, including three years, for stealing from around ten elderly people. The damage is estimated at 12,000 euros.
With his contagious good nature, Joseph* confesses: he placed complete trust in this man who knocked on his door, last October 24, in the Valbarelle district, in the east of Marseille. “He was a very nice person”remembers the old man who will soon celebrate his 81st birthday. The forty-year-old then explains to him that he is an EDF agent who carried out work in his building that very morning. The agent asks to see his extractor hood. “He spoke well, Joseph remembers. I was confident . We talked for a good five minutes. He even told me he had the same clock as me. I was fooled like a bruise.”
The man asks him for 30 euros to pay for the supposed work. A deliberately low sum so as not to attract suspicion according to the police. Joseph has no cash on him, but the so-called EDF agent assures him that he accepts the credit card. “So I went to get my credit card from the drawer”he remembers. The man observes him. Joseph thinks he is dialing his code on the “terminal” handed to him, when in reality it is a telephone keypad. “He then pressed the call button to be able to record the code”reports Chief Brigadier Cédric Touhami who worked on this investigation with his colleagues from the Marseille organized crime division.
“Then he asked me to get a recent EDF invoice”Joseph remembers. The retiree complies and leaves the room. The same evening, when he wants to take his credit card to buy hamburger steaks for his grandson, the case is indeed there, in the drawer, but the card has disappeared. The octogenarian immediately understands that it has been stolen and that the fake agent has rummaged through the drawer. “My heart started palpitating”he remembers. Indeed, the EDF agent was in reality a crook, who rushed to withdraw money from the nearest ATM.
Nearly 12,000 euros in damage
In total, 1000 euros were stolen from the old man with modest income. “Fortunately, my son-in-law was able to lend me this money so that I could repay my loans”breathes Joseph, who filed a complaint. From his story, investigators begin cross-checking with other similar cases in Marseille. They manage to identify the same operating mode, mainly in the eastern districts of the Marseille city. In total, around ten victims of the same scammer have been identified. All are people aged between 80 and 90, having encountered the same fake EDF agent on their doorstep.
The suspect stole a total of 12,000 euros from his victims, mainly taking their credit cards, but sometimes also cash and even telephones. A woman was robbed of the sum of 2,700 euros hidden in an envelope at her home. “He is a former chimney sweep himself, explains Patrick Mathouillet, police major in the Bouches-du-Rhône organized crime division. He had a polished speech.”
Three years in prison
The suspect was arrested Monday at his home, in the 11e district of Marseille. He had already been convicted for similar offenses in 2016 and received a prison sentence of three years. On Wednesday, the criminal court sentenced him to four years in prison, three of which were closed.
“We have a certain resurgence of this operating method in Marseille and more widely in Bouches-du-Rhône, alarms Benoît Auger-Latife, number three in the Bouches-du-Rhône territorial crime division. We have other cases of this type and we must draw the attention of elderly people or those in a situation of isolation to the vulnerability they may have towards this type of offender who is never violent and only dulls people’s vigilance.”
If an officer knocks on the door unexpectedly, the police officer recommends, among other things, “verify the veracity of these visits with the organization they claim to be”inquire with the trustee or the neighbors, and especially “systematically require a professional card or proof of intervention.” Three Marseille residents were arrested and tried this Thursday for having robbed 50 elderly people, including five in Marseille, by managing to accompany them to an ATM and then steal their credit cards.
*The first name has been changed.
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