A coman who tricked an elderly British woman living in Turkey into handing over a GBP 207,000 fortune in gold and banknotes has been seized by cops.
The fraudster posing as a policeman had convinced the retiree that professional thieves linked with terrorists had broken into her safety deposit box held at a bank near her retirement address in Ortaca, in Turkey’s Mugla province.
He said that her real valuables and cash had been replaced with fakes and the money handed over to the organised crime gang that orchestrated the theft, and which had links to a terrorist group known as the Fethullah Gülen Terrorist Organization (FETÖ).
In the aftermath of the July 2016 coup attempt, the Turkish government had labelled the movement onamed after self-exiled Fethullah Gulen as the “Fethullah Terrorist Organization” (“FETO”), although the US State Department has made it clear that it does not accept this designation.
But this did not stop the suspect, Abdulkadir Karatas, 23, telling her that as a result of the theft, he needed to check the box’s contents for fingerprints and arranged for her to hand the valuables over.
His victim, named only as C.I., agreed and emptied her bank box, handing him USD 156,000, EUR 66,000 in cash and 500g of gold at the meeting in Ortaca.
But moments later, reports local media, she had doubts and called the real-life police, who told her she’d been conned.
Quick-thinking officers rapidly searched local CCTV and found the con man getting into a taxi.
Then, using number plate recognition technology, they found his cab stuck in a traffic jam and arrested him still with his bagful of loot.
Local media says he is being held in custody while police investigate.
