Two men have been arrested in France on suspicion of tricking elderly people into paying thousands of euros for bedbug treatment they didn’t actually need, the BBC reported yesterday.
Strasbourg police said the scammers visited their victims’ homes, provided bogus cleaning services and then overcharged them for the “curatives” they offered. In total, 48 people were subjected to this type of fraud, many of whom were women over 90 years old.
According to French law enforcement agencies, scammers called their victims and reported that an infection had occurred in their area. They then visited homes, posing as health officials, and using aerosol cans to pretend to disinfect and sanitize the premises. Before leaving, they offered a “healing ointment” that they said would protect a person’s skin from insects. In fact, the “medicine” was a regular cream with a eucalyptus scent.
For the services provided, the scammers received from 300 to 2,100 euros from each of their victims, depending on the volume of “sanitary work” and the sale of “medicinal ointment.”
Police said they had received a total of nine formal complaints of suspected fraud.
In recent months, there has been an infestation of bedbugs across France. Entomologists and health experts warn that the “bedbug outbreak” has also led to a rise in “false sightings and unfounded hysteria” in Western Europe’s largest country, the British news service noted.
Infections in Paris have raised fears that the problem could spread across the English Channel to London. In an interview with PoliticsJOE in October, the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said the threat to the capital’s public transport system was a “real source of concern”. He then said that he contacted colleagues in Paris, as well as representatives of Transport For London, to “make sure that we do not have this problem.”
Let us remind you that Paris faced an invasion of bedbugs last fall. Residents of the French capital and tourists complained about the massive appearance of blood-sucking insects in homes, hotels, public transport, and other public places. Local authorities announced a potential threat to public health, and the press drew attention to the fact that the Olympic Games in Paris were less than a year away.
2023-12-08 21:43:00
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