Elderly woman scammed out of thousands, told her daughter was kidnapped

A new form of telephone fraud is making the rounds police warned on Friday after eight cases of attempted extortion of money came to the force’s attention.

In one instance the perpetrators succeeded in robbing an 87-year-old woman of €27,000 by convincing her that her relatives had been kidnapped.

Elderly people seem to keep sums of cash in their homes out of mistrust for the banks, a police spokesperson told the Cyprus Mail.

The police is not aware of the extent of the practice, however, it obviously increases chances of being swindled, the spokesperson said, as an in-person visit to withdraw a large sum is more likely to send up a red flag.

According to the police, the 87-year-old resident of Larnaca received a call on her landline around 3pm from an unknown man, who told her that he had kidnapped her daughter and husband, and demanded €10,000 to release them.

The stranger told her that someone would go to her apartment to pick up the money. The victim was convinced and a short while later, a man visited the apartment.

The  woman allowed him to enter and showed him a small suitcase containing €27,000 which he took and left.

Police in Larnaca on Thursday received seven more reports of foiled attempts, where fraudsters tried to trick mainly elderly people and extort money from them.