A latest instance of fraudsters scamming an elderly or vulnerable person out of hundreds of thousands of euros emerged this week, accompanied by video footage, in fact, of one suspect running through an upscale north Athens district with a bag reportedly containing some 600,000 euros in valued loot.

Despite wide-spread and continuous media attention, replete with law enforcement warnings, the scamming of elderly or vulnerable people appears unabated. Non-Internet scams alone are estimated to reach several millions of euros in losses every year, with con artists making off with cash, jewelry and coin coins.

Phone callers impersonating everything from physicians treating severely injured loved ones, accountants promising tax rebates and police officers demanding money in order to suppress charges against close relatives have been increasingly succeeded by the rip-off involving “power company employees”.

In the latest instance, fake power company employees persuaded an elderly woman in the Politia district to put all her valuables – among them 200 gold sovereigns” in a bag in order to avoid “electrocution” in her home due to a malfunctioning power line.

On New Year’s Eve last week, a 98-year-old Thessaloniki man was conned out of 370 gold sovereigns by crooks claiming they were holding his son prisoner. The audacious thieves even returned a second time to the man’s door demanding more gold coins.

Despite the media campaign and word-of-mouth awareness discussed in practically every Greek home authorities continue to express shock over the fact that many elderly people in the country continue to keep their life savings in their residence and the fact they don’t immediately call relatives when faced with whatever outlandish claims or demands.

Numerous arrests have been made over the years for this type of particularly irritating and egregious criminal activity, with a majority of the suspects being foreign nationals – mostly from the Balkans – along with members of the country’s Roma community.