Telephone fraud: Elderly targeted by bogus police officer calls
Telephone fraudsters posed as police officers to target older people on more than 300 occasions this year, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has said.
Victims handed over money or valuables 36 times, with a total of £135,000 in cash and jewellery worth £15,000 stolen.
Ten people have been arrested and seven charged over the scams.
A 95-year-old man spoke to BBC News NI anonymously about almost falling for the scam, in which a man purporting to be a police officer asked him about whether he had any money or valuables in the house.
"If I'd really fallen for the thing and said 'yes I've got a few thousand pounds in the house' they would have been up a day or two later and that would have been that," he said.
