December 12, 2004, Scam, Stockholm

Police are alerted that a scammer has just left an apartment in Östermalm where he has deceived an 85-year-old woman into handing over gold. 

Several patrols are ordered to the address and in the stairwell, several gold items are scattered as the perpetrator dropped them in flight. During the search for him, several people who resemble the perpetrator are checked, but he is not found and is still unknown. 

Police are currently receiving a large number of reports of serious scams targeting elderly people, particularly women, in Stockholm's inner city. 
But the scammers also operate in other parts of Stockholm. 

In many cases, the scam begins with a text message. The text messages that are circulating now are in many cases about cleaning help, window replacements, and package deliveries. 
In this case, the scam text message is about a bank account to deceive the woman into calling a fake lockout service. There, a person says that they will come to the woman's home to weigh her gold. 
A scammer then comes to the woman's home and gets a bag with gold worth hundreds of thousands of kronor. 
After that, it is unclear what happens, but the woman's husband comes home and the scammer suddenly has to rush from the scene and large parts of the loot are dropped in the stairs. 

However, not all the gold remains in the stairwell. The value of the goods the perpetrator got away with is currently unknown. Police classify the incident as a serious scam that can result in up to six years in prison. 

Do not answer phone numbers mentioned in unexpected text messages!
Do not let unknown people into your home to inspect your valuables!
Consider removing your phone numbers from search engines on the internet!

More tips and advice can be found on the linked page.