A 24-year-old woman from Nistelrode has been arrested for allegedly defrauding single very elderly people in Belgium. Two other Dutch people are also in custody for this helpdesk fraud.
According to the Public Prosecution Service (OM) in Belgian Limburg, victims have been defrauded of at least 100,000 euros. Belgian justice links the trio to at least fifteen and possibly nineteen fraud cases in Flanders, including several in Hasselt, Bilzen and Tongeren.
The three suspects were arrested last Tuesday in Sint Niklaas, Belgium. In addition to the woman from Nistelrode, it concerns men aged nineteen and twenty from Arnhem.
The victims received a call from someone posing as an employee of the financial institution where they are a customer. It was alleged that a large amount had been transferred abroad as a result of a suspicious transaction. An employee would come by to refund the money.
Fake employee took card with her
This fake employee then managed to get hold of the elderly person’s bank card and PIN code, with which money was withdrawn from the victim’s account. Expensive purchases were also made with it.
During the arrest, in a shopping center in Sint Niklaas, the three suspects had a lot of money in their pockets, as well as items that they had stolen earlier that day, according to the justice department. “They were shopping there with a stolen bank card,” said a spokeswoman for the Public Prosecution Service in Belgian Limburg.
She expects more cases will be reported. “New reports are coming in all the time. There are probably more because people are sometimes ashamed to report,” she said.