More research is needed in the case against a stubborn 53-year-old scammer from Almelo. The woman has been active in Overijssel for years. At the end of last year she moved her ‘field of work’ to Drenthe. The judge wants to know what it takes to stop this and decided on Tuesday to postpone the case and to have the woman investigated this. The woman said he wanted to cooperate.
She has been detained again since January. She admitted that she had scammed bicycle dealers by selecting and ordering an expensive electric bicycle. In the meantime, she received a loan bike. He entered Linea Recta into the delivery van of a friend and was resold. In some cases the woman managed to also order an e-bike for her ‘two daughters’. Those loan bikes were also packed. The ordered bicycles were never paid, let alone picked up.
Bicycle dealers in Emmen, Coevorden, Dalen and Borger kicked her talks and were saddled with a claim of thousands of euros. Two electronics businesses in Coevorden and Erica also fell victim. The woman came in with the story that her laptop was stolen on the train. She urgently needed a new one for her work. Her boss knew about it, she said. The bill could go there, it would be paid within a day. In this way she looted several laptops and iPads.
The iPads had them delivered in Schoonebeek, where she temporarily camped with an acquaintance. The entrepreneur did not fully trust it and went back to pick up his things again. But the goods and also the woman had already disappeared. She had found a new home where she approached by telephone church communities throughout the country with desperate stories.
She said she was a member of that community and she urgently needed money for medicines, or a taxi and felt that she was driving around in a mobility scooter. She had the money transferred to the account of a friend where she was staying at that time.
Sometimes she performed that friend as a pharmacist or taxi driver in the conversation. The man then made himself heard by telephone in that capacity. During the police investigation it turned out that in two months 172 times were transferred by church communities. Almost 10,000 euros had been collected, the money was spent on drugs, among other things. The woman admitted, but the men where she stayed was blamed, she proclaimed. “I was put under pressure, I had to do that,” she told the judge. The woman has been active as a scammer for decades. She has a criminal record of 23 sides. Previous prison sentences and a TBS measure have not helped.
In all kinds of habitats things have been going wrong for years, the judge noted. The woman has no daytime activities, no income, a negative social network, no shelter and uses drugs. “She does not seem able to get her life in order.” Rather, a mild intellectual disability and a personality disorder have been established in her. The judge wants to be investigated well, so that the woman always falls into this pattern. Because she is in custody, the case has been postponed for a maximum of three months.