Metropolitan Police have raided eight addresses across South London and arrested six people in connection with courier fraud.
Eight addresses in Croydon and Sutton were targeted on Wednesday morning by officers in connection with offences which have occurred in the surrounding area along with Surrey and Sussex this year.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Service said the five men and one woman aged between 19 and 24, currently remain in custody at a south London police station. The courier scam starts with the fraudsters telephoning the victim and claiming to be someone from an authority, usually the police or bank.
Extremely convincing fraud
The spokesman said: “In one recent case in Croydon, a family were conned into giving away £14,000 of jewellery and £2,000 cash to courier fraudsters who had used this method to convince the victims that they were police officers.They told the family that they should hand over the cash and jewellery to them as they had information that their house was going to be targeted by burglars"
“In another case an elderly male victim was driven to his bank over two days and deceived into withdrawing £15,000 of his life savings and handing it over to a ‘courier’.”
Detective Inspector Simon Harding, from Croydon CID, who is leading the investigations into these frauds in Croydon said: “This fraud can be extremely convincing because the victim thinks they are really dealing with police or their bank”
For further information visit the Metropolitan Police website.
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To report a fraud and receive a police crime reference number, call Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 or use our online fraud reporting tool.
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