The woman was approached by an unknown lady at the garage sale in Geulle. She asked her in poor Dutch if she would like to try on a coat: the woman wanted to buy it for her mother, she said, but did not know whether she had the right size.
wriggle
“I thought maybe it was a Ukrainian who wanted to buy a coat for her mother at the flea market. I had the same build as her mother, she added, “says Mrs. Bollen.
She felt the lady wriggle at the back of her neck. “I thought she was working on the jacket collar,” she says. Apparently it wasn’t the right size after all. The lady took her coat off again, spoke briefly to a young man who was passing almost by accident at the time, and walked down a side street. “She still waved at me kindly,” says Mrs. Bollen.
When she got into her car and looked in the rear-view mirror, Mrs. Bollen saw that her chain was gone. “I wear that necklace day and night,” she says. “It’s like a wedding ring that you never take off.” At that point, the thief had already disappeared from view. “I asked people on that street if they had seen anything, but no one had noticed.”
gang
Ms Bollen, who announced that she would report the incident on Monday afternoon, is afraid that this is a gang that robs unsuspecting passers-by in this way, especially now that the Tefaf is in Maastricht and more people are walking on the street with expensive jewelry. However, according to the police, no comparable reports have been received that support the suspicion of her. For now, the police assume that this is a one-off incident.