The Guardia Civil in Salobreña and Churriana de la Vega are looking for five people who swindled elderly people using the ‘estampita’ and the ‘tocomocho’ techniques

Three of the confidence tricksters work in a team and managed to ‘acquire’ 4,800 euros from their elderly victim using the time-honoured estampita trick on the coast. The other two culprits bagged 3,000 euros using the tried-and-trusted tocomocho in Churriana de la Vega, not far from the city of Granada.

In the case of Salobreña, the ‘team’ comprised of a man of between 40 and 50, a woman between 60 and 70 and a young lass who passed herself off as being ‘not all there.’ This is how the estampita works: The young girl approaches the elderly victim, crying and in seemingly obvious, but feigned, distress. She has a ripped 20-euro note in one hand and a nice fat wad of 50-euros in the other. She complains that a woman in the park wanted to take the money from her.

This is when the man and woman approach, admitting that they have been trying to take the money, pointing out that the girl will only hand it over if exchanged for new notes. The greedy victim, and elderly lady, went home, took out her savings book and withdrew 4,800 euros and gave it to the girl in exchange for a plastic bag that supposedly contained much more in bank notes that she had seen before in the girl’s hand. By the time that the victim gets to look in the bag, the three are long gone and there are only news paper cuttings in the bag.

However, it’s hard to feel any sympathy for and elderly lady that wants to take advantage of young girl with learning difficulties, right?

Now comes the tocomocho: over in Churriana, where two people approach an 84-year-old gentleman. The one man in his 30’s also appears to be mentally challenged and speaks with an accent of someone from Galicia, the other man is taller and speaks with a central-Spain accent. It starts with the shorter man approaching, saying that he has a prize-winning lottery ticket, followed moments later by the second man who stops to listen, look at the ticket, and confirm that it indeed is worth a lot of money. He takes out money from his pocket with the intention of buying the tickets of the ‘victim,’ whilst at the same time convincing the real victim to put some money towards the purchase and share the prize money with him.

The two men accompany the elderly man to his house, where he gets his bank book and withdraws 3,000 euros. He actually tried to withdraw 15,000 but fortunately, the teller wouldn’t allow him, saying that to withdraw that amount they needed prior notice.

The elderly victim then agreed to accompany the two men to Granada but before they arrived the taller man told the old gent to get out and wait for him to return, explaining that he was going to take the shorter man home to put the gent at ease, he handed over a bag supposedly containing the winning lottery tickets. Of course, a long period goes by, nobody came back, so the gleeful victim opens the bag, only to find the obligatory newspaper cuttings.

As in both cases it is the victim’s greed that traps them, they then rarely go to the police and explain how they tried to take advantage of somebody with mental disabilities, but sometimes their anger overcomes their conscience and they do report the incidents to the police.

(News: Salobrena, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)