Con dressed as copper

Crooks posing as police officers are still tricking victims into emptying their bank accounts. The Metropolitan Police has reported two new cases in London, with the same suspect possibly involved both times. In the first case a woman of 51 was phoned by someone claiming to be a Scotland Yard detective called James Portman. He spun her a yarn during a series of phone calls about how she had been the victim of ID fraud and needed to withdraw her savings or risk losing everything. She was instructed to hand the money to a courier who would bring it to Hammersmith police station in West London. To give the story credence, the bogus detective gave a crime reference number and told the victim to check it by calling 999 – but he didn’t hang up and so the victim’s call was taken by him or an accomplice. Det Con James Egley from the Met’s Operation Falcon team said: “These conmen went to extreme lengths to gain the victim’s trust to deliberately deceive her out of her hard-earned life savings.” The police have not revealed how much the woman lost. In a separate case, a 73-year-old woman from South London was conned after a fake officer phoned to say that her debit card had been used to make fraudulent purchases. She was persuaded to buy a watch for £25,000, which was then handed to the bogus police officer, supposedly as part of their investigations. Det Con Michael Esangbedo from Southwark CID in South London said: “I am pleading with anyone that recognises the man in the CCTV images to get in touch with police. “The offenders have deliberately deceived the victim out of her life savings.” Scotland Yard has confirmed that one line of inquiry is the possibility that the same person was involved in both offences. It has released pictures of a man described as Asian, five foot eight inches tall and in his twenties.

SPOTTED CCTV shows the man police would like to question